Abstract

The city of Valdivia, unlike other Chilean cities, faces the river. This has translated into a rich, varied, deep, and intimate history and relationship with the main rivers surrounding and crossing through it. From fishing and bartering in pre-Columbian times, passing through a colonial era, and later an industrial stage, today it remains in a multiplicity of uses that include trade, naval, sports, and touristic activities among others. This intertwined history between the city and its rivers is part of the memory and identity of those who live there. Pierre Nora mentions that «there are as many memories as there are groups; which are by nature multiple, collective, plural, and individualizable” (1984), and that «places of memory are, first of all, remains» (Ibid.) and that memory «must first be defined as the set of places where collective memory is anchored, condensed, crystallized, sheltered, and expressed» (1992). In the case of the city of Valdivia, this long-standing relationship of the city with its rivers has left an imprint on its riverbanks: vestiges of old docks, ruins of factories in disuse associated with the river trade, abandoned train lines or sunken ships, which constitute an important part of the collective memory and identity of the city. For Gilberto Gimenez, «the concepts of culture and identity are closely interrelated and indissociable concepts, our identity can only consist in the distinctive appropriation of certain cultural repertoires that are found in our social environment, group, or society» (2005). In Valdivia, there is a culture around its river edge, an issue that completely defines its identity. According to Böhme (2014), the mean atmosphere between the objectivity of the environment and the subjectivity of the human is a space “between” both: «between objective conditions and subjective states, between object and subject». An atmosphere is impregnated by the objects, constructions, and structures that surround and cross it (Zumthor, 2007). Both the vestiges of bygone activities and the bustling current life that animates these rivers, give Valdivia its very own atmosphere that identifies and distinguishes it. This atmosphere also has its own light and color that form what we have called, its chromatic atmosphere. This text addresses the relationship between the main current and past activities associated with Valdivia’s rivers, their chromatic atmosphere, and the memory entrenched in these places, which is part of its inhabitants’ identity