Estación Mapocho Cultural Center

This guide to the Estación Mapocho Cultural Center in Santiago follows architect Emilio Jecquier's plan for an iron-and-glass train station meant to crown Chile's 1910 centennial, and the Belgian ironworks that had to cast the trusses because no local workshop could. It traces the seven decades the hall spent serving trains from the port, the nitrate mines and across the Andes, and the 1985 earthquake that helped bring that era to a close. You'll hear how the government later chose to rebuild rather than tear down. Stand beneath the arched trusses and look up.