ABSTRACT
Democracy returned to Chile in 1990, and in the decade that followed, political and other memories that emerged were permeated by experiences of life under the shadow of the dictatorship. This chapter reflects on these processes, paying particular attention to the relationship between urban space and heritage. We propose that, just as urban heritage played a key role in the process of social reparation following the return to democracy, it was also central to the articulation of the dictatorship’s political discourse. As such, manifestations of political memory during the final decade of the 20th century should be considered against the background of the military regime and the associated political and urban conditions. Based on records kept by the National Monuments Council, presidential messages and other reports, and drawing on a notion of built heritage as a strand of urban planning and an element of social, political and cultural memory, this chapter provides a review of milestones and monuments from dictatorship to democracy and examines their reflection of an official memory in the midst of debates concerning the city, memory and heritage.
