INVENTION OF THE DESERT. ART AND ARCHITECTURE FROM THE PERUVIAN COAST

Abstract

We think about the Peruvian rainforest as vegetation and the Andes as topography, but we characterize the coast as a space or emptiness waiting to be defined. In the second half of the twentieth century, Peruvian artists and architects reflect on the desert areas far from the city forming a narrative about the landscape. The desert is conceptualized as an abstract entity, almost as a mirage of the reality that is being built in the city. The objective of the paper is to offer a reading about a landscape that has been idealized by high culture despite being a precarious urban reality that represents more than 60% of the extension of Metropolitan Lima, reinforcing the tension between the categories of center and outskirts. Beyond the plastic possibilities, a reading about the desert allows us to focus on a current perspective that helps to build a contemporary and equitable city, maintaining the spatial and social values corresponding to the landscape and the territory in which we live. Remember that Lima, the largest and most populous city in Peru, with almost 10 million inhabitants, is one of the largest metropolises in the world built on a desert.