The Conflicting Vernacular: Germán Rodríguez Arias and Pablo Neruda's Three Houses in Chile

Abstract

In 1957, Catalan architect Germán Rodríguez Arias carefully erased the tower roof and some other additions that the poet Pablo Neruda had made to his original design for the poet's house in Isla Negra (Figure 1).1 This event marked the end of a long and contentious relationship between the poet laureate and the modernist architect responsible for the design of three famous houses in which the Neruda lived (Figures 1, 2, and 3). Designed between 1943 and 1956, the three houses—Isla Negra, Los Guindos and La Chascona—showcase not only the turbulent relationship of the architect and the poet, but also a different understanding of the cultural legacy of republican Spain and its strong relationship between avant-garde and vernacular and popular culture, one that was intensively lived by both men before the three houses were built.2