Mapocho Station

You end the route in front of the former Mapocho Station, the building with which Santiago wanted to welcome travellers the way European capitals did.

1A gateway for the Centenary

At the start of the twentieth century, the channelling of the Mapocho River, promoted earlier by Vicuña Mackenna, freed up land on its south bank. A great terminus was planned there for the celebrations of the Centenary of independence in 1910. The design was by Emilio Jéquier, a French-trained architect who also signed the Palace of Fine Arts.

Work began in 1905. The steel girders were ordered from the French firm Schneider-Creusot, and the roof was made in Belgium. There were delays, and the station missed the Centenary: it opened in 1912.

2From platforms to cultural centre

For decades, trains left from here for Valparaíso and the north. It also served as a polling station in several twentieth-century elections. When rail services stopped, the building stood empty until, after a refurbishment between 1991 and 1994, it reopened as the Estación Mapocho Cultural Centre. Today it hosts exhibitions, concerts and the Santiago International Book Fair.

Where passengers once waited with their suitcases, readers now queue to get into the book fair.

3What to look for

• The three great arches of the facade, which let light into the platforms.
• The corner domes and the carved garlands.
• The Mapocho River behind you, whose channelling made the building possible.