The author appreciates the contribution made by the locksmith art in the urban architecture of the early twentieth century in Chile (architects Alberto Cruz Alberto Montt and Siegel, among others), noting the case of the company founded by Ponti Carlos Mine, belonging to a locksmiths Spanish family that goes back to the time of Napoleon I. Carlos Mina Ponti worked first in Chile with Italian locksmiths
─Ravanello, and Santambrogio─, and soon became independent. Company reached its zenith in the decades of 1920 and 1930, having obtained his Grand Prix at the Ibero American Exposition of Seville in 1929. With the advent of the Modern Movement and its architecture without decoration, the company concluded its activities in the late 1950s.