Barrio Brasil

This guide to Barrio Brasil in Santiago centers on the Basilica del Salvador, the neo-Gothic church German engineer Teodoro Burchard designed in the 1870s after a fire at the nearby Church of the Company killed as many as two thousand people at an evening service. It follows the 1985 and 2010 earthquakes that cracked the basilica's pillars and toppled its walls, and the argument among engineers over whether the ruined building should simply be demolished. Stand on Avenida Brasil and look up at its twin brick towers, still standing above the plaza.