Palacio Cousiño
French Second Empire mansion of imported marble, crystal and gold, built by a coal-and-silver widow.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Palacio Cousino in Santiago follows Isidora Goyenechea, who finished the mansion alone in 1878 after her husband Luis Cousino died of tuberculosis in 1873, while she ran the family's coal and silver fortune herself. It traces the marble, crystal and silks shipped from Europe around Cape Horn to fill an outwardly plain brick shell, and the private electric generator and elevator she installed years ahead of the rest of the city. Listen for what still survives from the fire that tore through the building in 1968.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Palacio Pereira
Neoclassical mansion reborn from decades of ruin, its cast-iron cross-shaped gallery left scarred on purpose.
Viña Cousiño Macul
Nineteenth-century stone cellars and family estate on land once a thousand hectares, now hemmed in by the city.
MAC Museum of Contemporary Art
Beaux-Arts palace with a rebuilt Belgian dome, restored after fire and two earthquakes cracked its walls.
National Museum of Fine Arts
Beaux-Arts palace with a Belgian iron-and-glass dome flooding its galleries with natural light.
Correo Central Building
French-style former palace turned postal headquarters, crowned by a black cupola facing a historic city square.
Barrio Concha y Toro
Deliberately crooked streets and eclectic mansions built over a vanished palace estate.