The click of the camera shutter captured the

moment. On Wednesday 22 November 1972

A Panel's Tale Trojan Horse that donations of this sort typi-
cally constituted - a more covert equine
president Salvador Allende is shown sur- precedent not lost on Alberto Arenas, then
rounded by hundreds of Chilean workers head of Chile's Sub-Department of
The Soviet KP D System and
and Soviet dignitaries in a new factory in the Industrialised Housing. Interviewed 35 years
small industrial town of El Belloto, Quilpué, the Politics of Assemblage after the event, Arenas offers a qualified
northwest of Santiago. Standing at the cen- shortcoming to the wisdom of a familiar say-
tre of the photograph Allende bends down ing: 'We used to say of a gift horse like this not
to inscribe his signature into the wet
Pedro Ignacio Alonso to look in its mouth, but what was I expected
cement of a panel - one of the first produced and Hugo Palmarola to know of horses if I had never seen one

by the factory's assembly line. For posterity, before? I knew absolutely nothing about how
alongside his name he also writes an appre- to shoe a horse, or what sort of food to feed it,
ciative greeting to 'Soviet and Chilean com- No, no J can't telly ou everything. or how many hours I should exercise it or
rades', thanking his countrymen who will Either I tell you about the country , when I should brush or bathe it or how many
man the plant and the country who donated or else I tell you what happened. times a month I should trim the mane of such

the entire facility. Against this backdrop, of But , inyour place, rdpickwhat a gift? What culture did I have, as an archi-
a small town on the edge of country itself happened, because it's a good story. tect, to be the vet and guardian of an animal
seemingly on the far edge of the world, Primo Levi, The Wrench that I didn't know, let alone master?'3
Allende's inscription transformed a stan- Notwithstanding Arenas' very obvious
dardised industrial component into a (and clearly still manifest) sense of
unique monument, a signal of his exasperation, at that time the Soviet
express hope and mission of carrying donation of kpd and the incorpora-
out the economic and social transfor- tion of an advanced housing industry
mation of Chile towards an 'integral, formed a ready-made political pro-
scientific and Marxist socialism'.1 gramme for a leader with the courage
As one of the few Soviet donations and savvy to grasp it. But the clear
to the 'Chilean road to socialism', precedent to this lay in Russia itself. In
this factory was designed to manufac- the period immediately after Stalin's
ture prefabricated concrete panels for death, the country's gargantuan hous-
Chile's then fledgling programme of ing industry emerged as a fundamen-
social housing - a system that went tal component in the struggle for
by the name kpd after the original supreme political power/ Stalin him-
Russian acronym кпд, meaning 'large self had made the building industry
panel construction' (крупнопанельное домостроение).2 kpd itself was one of the most important areas in the programme for the socialist
a Soviet adaptation of the French Camus system, patented in 1949
transformation of the national economy through his first five-year
to prefabricate large concrete panels in factories capable of producing plan (1928-33), but it was during the succeeding administration,
up to 2,000 housing units a year. Camus and kpd shared a fundamen-led by Nikita Khrushchev (1953-64), that all previous experiences
tal structural system in that both were manufactured on the basis in the production of industrialised housing were increased to an
of concrete panels held together via steel rods, with the joint betweenunprecedented urban and economic dimension. Under his govern-
each panel filled with poured concrete to produce a rigid and homoge-ment huge research grants were channelled into any technology that
promised the acceleration of housing production, not just in the
neous whole. Among the improvements to the system made by Soviet
engineers, however, were the introduction of a linear cast concrete Soviet capital but across the most distant regions of its territory. The
production process and adaptations made to the standard assembly
rapid dissemination of the resulting factories was an integral part of
plant, redesigned in the Soviet Union following studies by the state the regime's control and colonisation strategies - deploying techno-
research institute for ferrous metals, Giproneftemash, and Design logical components that Alexander D'Hooghe has termed 'civilising
Institute No 2. devices'.5 Officially categorised as an exchange of technological
Despite a thawing of Soviet policy towards developing countries expertise, such a system of préfabrication became an ideal way to
initiated in 1964 by Leonid Brezhnev, during the years of the Cold distribute ideology beyond Russia's immediate borders - even to
War, the only Latin American countries to receive donated kpd facto-places as geographically remote as Cuba and Chile - using archi-
ries were Cuba in the 1960s and Chile in the 1970s. In both cases thetectural objects as antennae to broadcast the regime's rhetoric. In
ability to produce affordable mass housing was desperately needed, Chile, as well as in the Soviet Union, the productive complex of
partly as a result of recent devastating natural disasters - Hurricanekpd factories would be the most tangible territorial footprint of
Flora had decimated the Cuban coast in 1963 and the 1971 Chilean
this logic, signalling that 'the organisation of space would be sub-
ordinated completely to the purpose of increasing production'.6
earthquake similarly destroyed many of the country's towns and hous-
ing stock. The immediacy of this shortage However, while this holds true when con-
President
also led a number of Chile's government sidering the general scope of these préfabri-
commemor
ministers and officials to focus on Soviet cation systems, the idea kpd
that the donation of
of the
good intentions rather than the less explicit Photo Nolberto Salinas large panel factories was a mechanism to dis-

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seminate Soviet socialist ideals needs to be qualified in the context of which derived from native Chilean dialects). At a more fundamental,
the specific policies towards Chile overseen by Leonid Brezhnev. institutional level, in 1971 Allende endorsed the launch of Chile's
Although the Soviets expressed support to governments considered Unit of Industrial Design, led by the German former HfG Ulm
both socialist and anti-imperialist, by the end of the 1960s, and per- designer, Gui Bonsiepe, with a short-term brief to research the
haps due to the Cuban and Chinese experiences in the context of the design of everyday objects and a long-term objective of totally re-
Cold War, the relationship between the ussr and Chile can be charac- imagining existing manufacturing models, both socially and eco
terised only as a rather cautious and pragmatic one.7 This, of course, nomically. Around 22 projects were initially developed: the majority
was a period when the Unidad Popular led by Allende was increasingly were for agricultural machinery, metallurgical apparatuses and
forced by the us embargo to rely on the Soviet Union for some form of domestic electrical appliances, but they also included basic furni
financial support. But documents from the conservative Christian ture for state schools and designs for social housing (only very few of
Democratic government of Allende's predecessor, Eduardo Frei which were ever realised).11
Montalva (1964-70), indicate that his own administration considered The underlying faith in technology common to all of these initia-
Soviet aid, and the importation of industrial technologies for the reali- tives has to be contextualised within a wider technological pro-
sation of various infrastructural projects across the country. Based on a gramme started by Frei Montalva in 1968 and the creation of th
'Soviet loan that would allow Chile to promote its economic develop- Chilean Institute of Technological Research (intec), which looked
ment through the acquisition of indispensable capital goods',8 this to accelerate technological advances in relation to Chile's natural
cooperation, however, soon had to struggle against new restrictions resources (particularly copper). With Allende's accession to power
imposed by the Soviet authorities. intec 's goals were extended to improve the management of pro-
In political terms, the change in Soviet policy with regard to Chile duction across multiple industries and the manufacture of durabl
stems largely from its pessimism (ultimately proved correct) about the capital goods. Seen in this light, kpd was not the (somewhat dated
viability of Allende's democratic socialist project; but commercial technological vehicle that Allende's Chile would use to propel its
restrictions also qualified the nature of any aid provided to Chile by the superannuated housing industry forward in the absence of alterna-
ussr. At the 24th pcus Congress of 1971, Soviet delegate Alexei tive models, rather, and far more radically, kpd was itself to be rein-
Kosygin explained to Chilean representatives that any cooperation had vented through its incorporation into a new networked manufactur-
to be resolved in the context of mutual economic advance, pre-empt- ing infrastructure. Evidence of this ambition can be found in the fact
ing the new policy of tied loans (for food and technical exchanges) that between 1971 and 1973 Chilean and British engineers, working
under conditions identical to those of any agreement between market under the direction of the British cybernetician Stafford Beer, built a
capitalist economies. The supposed qualitative differences between computer network to help make Chile's socialist revolution a reality.
socialism and capitalism - as perceived by the Chilean left-wing - thus According to Eden Medina, this socialist internet would have
vanished.9 As a consequence of these political and commercial stric- allowed the Chilean government to transmit information between
tures, Soviet policy regarding the export of its technologies also its nationalised factories and the State Development Corporation
changed, with the emphasis shifting to 'interchange' rather than sim- (corfo). The team called the system Cybersyn, a synthesis of th
ply aid. Given these conditions, 'Moscow refused to sustain heavy words cybernetics and synergy. Because of the 1973 coup it only eve
industrial projects in Chile, advising instead on the consolidation of remained a prototype, but had it been allowed to develop, kpd could
light industries - an activity that the ussr was in fact keen to have become one of many nationalised factories managed, in real
promote'.10 These lighter industries (of which kpd was an integral time, from the ops-room of the Cybersyn headquarters.12
part) were seen to further a global socialist project while at the same Exchange relations between Chile and the и к went further dur-
time offering technologies that were not so advanced as to provide any ing Allende's brief period in office. Encouraged by the warm recep-
succeeding government (with a very different ideological agenda) with tion of kpd, British representatives approached Alberto Arenas i
an undeserved advantage. 1972 to offer a new system of industrial housing for developing coun
For Allende, however, the introduction of kpd was not a lone com- tries called BRECAST. Two young Chilean engineers were immedi
ponent in his socialist revolution but part of a much broader pattern of ately dispatched to England to learn more because, for Arenas, 'i
reforms aimed to revise the industrial design of housing as well as was a better system than kpd because it was more flexible and adapt
many other basic domestic goods. In this Allende was, to a certain able', and also 'didn't have the grandiose political associations of
extent, following a recent Chilean precedent - as early as 1939 the kpd'.13 The main difference was that brecast - provided with a bat-
Corporación de Fomento a la Producción (corfo) was established as tery casting system - could produce precast concrete panels without
a public institution with a mandate to support 'Industrialisation the necessity of setting up expensive factories.14 With exchange dis-
through the Substitution of Importations' (isi). But it was only from cussions successfully concluded, a brecast system was packed and
the mid-1950s that a more ambitions plan was put forward, ranging ready to embark to Chile from a dock in Liverpool at the beginning o
from the fabrication and redesign of basic commodities to the produc- September 1973, only for Pinochet's coup d'état on 11 September to
tion of more complex and durable capital goods. Allende's particular force the immediate cancellation of the order and the system
take on this policy was to democratise it, reversing the limited access remained in Britain. This was not, however, the only shipment can-
that low-income families had to such products by introducing a radical celled. According to General Nikolai Leonov, vice director of the
change to existing manufacturing models, transferring private indus- kgb's Department for Latin America between 1968 and 1972, thre
tries to the state, rationalising public or mixed industries and in the Russian merchant ships were also heading to Chile, carrying
process radicalising the isi model. weapons and tanks. The instant Moscow got news of the coup, it gav
Displaying a relatively low level of innovation, the first results of orders for the ships to turn around.15 This double cancellation, for
this policy were the Yagan car and Antu television set (the names of orders both infrastructural and military, gives some sense of th

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tensions that existed for Allende - defending his democratically to defend the factory against possible attack, increasing surveillance
elected Marxist Unidad Popular against us embargos and scarce eco- during the day and night and running self-defence classes on the fac-
nomic support from the us sr. These tensions ultimately only tory's forecourt. The fact that the Chilean navy's airbase was located
allowed for one exchange venture to become a reality - kpd. directly opposite the factory also didn't help - the navy started to fly
First installed, as we have seen, in November 1972, Chile's kpd reconnaissance over the factory, especially on those days when the
plant ultimately went on to produce approximately 153 housing workers were practising their defence routines'. Núñez goes on to
blocks in Quilpué, Valparaíso, Viña del Mar and Santiago, and annu- recall that within the plant, 'not only the Soviets, but everybody had
ally generated the equivalent of 140,000m2 of housing (roughly 1,600 been spied upon by the existing military authorities ... even before
apartments a year). Each block typically contained 16 flats - six three- the coup, everyone was identified, photographed and filed ... kpd
bedroom apartments (approximately 84m2) and ten two-bedroom was a clearly identifiable target for those forces who would act
apartments (approximately 67m2). To date, in Chile, no other should a military coup d'état prevail'.17 A Russian translator, Valeri
industrialised building system has bettered either this annual pro- Viktorovich Serguéev, who was working at the plant at the time adds,
duction or the amount of internal space afforded to each flat. At the 'the right-wing hated kpd, they said that we trained terrorists and
El Belloto factory 300 people worked in two 12-hour shifts to fabri- carried out target practice inside the factory'.18
cate the panels, while another 400 workers were employed across Increasingly, myths and stories about the factory started to circu-
various building sites, assembling the panels. The plant's ideal late, foremost among them the idea that the Russians were using the
logistical radius was 50km (the delivery of the panels was thought to plant to camouflage missiles by disguising them as cranes. Orlando
be uneconomic beyond this distance). Although only one kpd fac- Diaz, vice-president of kpd's trade union, remembers that a local
tory was ever in operation, there was talk of relocating this plant newspaper 'published a story that the kpd plant was not only a
when the housing quota for a certain region had been fulfilled, or of munitions factory but a factory that specialised in heavy weaponry.
introducing a series of factories nationwide, which could then be In 1973 they printed a picture of a missile that they said was being
converted into community centres once the necessary housing had constructed at the plant. Anyone looking at the photograph would
been generated. have clearly seen that it was actually a crane, but the guy who took the
In parallel with the physical production enabled by kpd, the picture did so when the crane was at a 45-degree angle, as if it was
Chilean government also gave broad support to disseminating news ready to launch. They ran the headline, "This is What the Russians
stories, photographs and films celebrating the arrival of the kpd sys- are Making in El Belloto", but it was just a tower-crane! We all had a
tem and the industrialisation of social housing. A key figure in gener- big laugh about this. They just kept imagining that dark and hidden
ating this media, Alberto Arenas wrote a documentary on kpd that things were happening there.'19
was to be shown on Chile's national television station and in cine- Faced with this barrage of criticism, not only from newspapers
mas across the country. While all physical traces of the filmallied to the right but from the Chilean Construction Council
are now
(enraged
lost, Arenas has explained the script's narrative sequence: 'First, we at how kpd was being used to precipitate the abandoning
wanted to show the problem of the housing shortage, andofthen to
all private tender agreements), the government upped its own
illustrate the idea that in order to build the city of the future we had
propaganda efforts. 'From the shovel to the button' became a slogan
to abandon the idea of the endlessly expanding sprawl, and to start
used to highlight the technological advances offered by the system.
organising more dynamic and dense projects. The idea wasOrlando
then toDiaz continues, 'at that time I couldn't even imagine that
educate the masses by saying that the reality of living in a city would
from the very moment the trucks carrying the panels arrived, there
would
force them to forget having cats, dogs, chickens and pigs, be no one required to stick a shovel into the ground... The
because
society would demand a new way of behaving, and that we had to of our trade union was the same guy who would prepare all
president
abandon customs that wouldn't be possible in dense high-rise con-
the aggregates - sitting in a very small office just pressing buttons, he
structions. We would then say that there were techniques now that
used to mix concrete while wearing a suit and tie. There was no phys-
could make this happen, and that the community, organised in no one even had a shovel, everything was mechanised'.20
ical work,
Such the
teams, could develop a sort of cooperative property model where an idealised vision of automation came to be metonymically
individual inhabitant could begin to contribute to the making of the
symbolised by the panel. As the key protagonist in a well-staged cho-
city by creating community spaces of co-ownership. We alsoreography,
wanted this component was simply following a pattern of
to dedicate a chapter to the actual technologies in order to say that it dictated by a series of automated processes, both in terms
sequences
was not only possible to build higher than with traditional systems,
of its production in the factory and its final assembly on the con-
but also that people should not fear préfabrication. Throughstruction
préfab-site.
rication we wanted to show the unifying effort made by both What
the is particularly interesting about kpd was that the people
Soviet Union and Chile. An industry like kpd, amongst otherresponsible
things, for staging a key part of this choreography were not men
but women,
highlighted the role of women, and so the film was to show that peo- a role reversal recommended by the Soviets. Patricio
ple should not fear the new technology because these were healthy
Núñez, kpd's sub-director, explains, 'The Russians asked us why we
apartments, clean and affordable, etc, etc.'16 were hiring men to operate the cranes. They said that this is a very
The obvious consequence of this impassioned socialistic (and job, and that women are much more meticulous at this kind
delicate
therefore highly politicised) message was that even before the 1973 and if not already expert, they can be trained quickly. We
of work,
coup, the kpd plant came to be seen by opposing political factions as
immediately picked up on this idea and the women, in fact, did work
some kind of malignant Soviet enclave. According to Patriciovery
Núñez,
well ... not needing to make the physical effort to wield a shovel,
architect and sub-director of the kpd plant in El Belloto, 'at aacertain,
hammer or a saw, women could rely instead on their excellent
critical point in early 1973 workers began organising committees
hand-to-eye coordination'.21 According to the kpd's trade union

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president, Manuel Ramirez, 'women are neat, always careful ... by resonated with a certain symbolic power. One day before travelling to
nature they are not rough but soft, calm and tranquil (although we Moscow in search of additional financial aid, Allende inaugurated the
know that some of them, of course, can be different) ... women are kpd factory with the sweep of his signature in the fresh concrete. This
careful because of their maternal instincts ... and aware that stand- panel became a commemorative element - a symbolism not simply
ing beneath four- or five-tonne panels men were at work, theymetaphorical
knew but literal, in being placed proudly in front of the fac-
that their job was to move the panels into position without any kindmain entrance. This event, widely advertised, offered tangible
tory's
of risk, and without damaging the panel itself. Some men, of proof
course,
of the aid the Soviets had always promised. It is assumed that
could do this, but really very few. Women worked better.'22 Allende took details of the inauguration of the factory with him to
This unexpected (and in Chile, quite unprecedented) subversion
Moscow, as evidence of the viability and success of the Soviet invest-
of construction site practice attracted the attention of a number
mentofin Chile, of the first step towards what he hoped would be greater
economic
illustrated newspaper reports. One article titled, 'Women Steering ... and infrastructural support. He would return empty-
a Crane: An Interview With Ten Women Who Decided to Swaphanded,
Their though the disappointment would quickly be overshadowed
Household Duties For Machines, Screws and Cranes' was published
during the ensuing months by the violent polarisation of the country's
in Paloma magazine.23 Maria Elena Pivet, who became the political
crane- factions, by General Pinochet's us-backed coup d'état and,
operators' delegate to the kpd trade union, was quoted as saying, 'I
ultimately and tragically, by Allende's suicide on 11 September 1973.
am a dressmaker by profession but I never liked it. Imagine, Infour
the immediate wake of the coup, the kpd factory was taken over
kids to support. Now, though, they cannot believe that I work by
operat-
the navy. Most of its Soviet and Chilean executives were expelled
ing a crane ... and they are very from the country, and the fac-
happy about it. Besides, I feel tory's director, Hugo Cabezas,
useful, working on something so was replaced by Admiral Roberto
important; building houses for Vargas Biggs, who held this posi-
the Chileans.'24 In a recent inter- tion until 1976. Patricio Núñez,
view in 2007, Pivet remembers second in command to Cabezas,
that for her 4 it was a really new managed to keep his job for
experience ... and it proved to us almost a year due to his technical
that despite the fact that before and non-political profile. Other
we were just working on domes- kpd staff and workers, however,
tic chores, we could now do were detained and in some cases

things everybody thought were tortured and murdered. The

exclusive to men... I was truly fas- majority were first taken to the
cinated by the job. We studied El Belloto airbase, then sent to
for six months at the inacap the Playa Ancha stadium in Val-
institute and then for another paraiso, before finally being
three months at the plant itself. jailed in the holds of navy battle-
The Russians were quite demand- ships in the city's port. In total,
ing. They used to test us to see our four kpd staff were never seen

capabilities, whether we got again - a young Uruguayan sec-

stressed or not ... but unlike oth- retary who worked in Santiago
ers, the crane never made me and three Chilean workers
nervous.'25 Another female crane- based in Valparaiso and Quil-
driver said at the time, 'we have all pué.28 As Susan Sontag has sug-
gested,
the men in the factory at our feet. We never feel more perhaps
important photography is indeed 'an inventory of mort
than
stating 'the
when we are sitting above them in the crane'. 26 The integration ofinnocence,
this the vulnerability of lives heading
their
female workforce was offered up as explicit evidence ofown destruction'.29
the socialist
arrival of gender equality. And like most of the workersThinking back to this time, Orlando Diaz and Manual Ramirez
in the factory,
these women belonged to the Communist Party, therecall
ideological com-
that 'the only weapon in the plant the day of the coup was an old
mitments of which perhaps explain the acceptance ofgun
women
with a in a tra-
broken trigger. It was a revolver that could only be shot
ditionally male preserve. As Orlando Diaz recalls, 'we were
using preaching
a hammer ... later, talking to a navy official, he told us that the
that under the Unidad Popular women should have their space
information atreceived from his base was that we were heavily
they had
work ... we said that women have to walk side by side with
armed men',
with Soviet and
weapons, even missiles, and so on. We wish we'd
although Manuel Ramirez says now that it was 'all
had about respect,
even a few pebbles to put in our catapults!'30 Initially, navy officials
respect towards the female worker', Maria Elenasearched
Pivet inadds
vain that
for the arsenal of weaponry supposedly hidden at the
'sometimes it was necessary to beat certain guys up akpd.
little'. 2? Arenas remembers that the search for weapons 'resulted
Alberto
As 1972 drew to a close, the limits of Soviet in the military tapping on panels and con-
economic support for Chile were becoming crete flooring. When they thought they heard
Detail of a poster, designed by Vicente Larrea,
promoting housing reconstruction
increasingly apparent. As practically the only a weird or hollow sound they would break the
in the wake of Chile's earthquake of 8 July 1971
project to be realised as a consequence of this slabs up with mechanical hammers to look
Archivo de Originales, fadeu, Pontificia Universidad
Soviet/Chilean alliance, the kpd plant clearly Católica de Chile underneath. At a certain moment Admiral

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Clockwise from top left :

Allende with the Soviet Ambassador (left)

during the inauguration of the kpd plant
22 November 1972, photo Nolberto Salinas

The commemorative kpd panel signed by

Allende and installed at the entrance of the

factory, 1972, from Revista Paloma, no 11, 1972

Soviet cranes at the kpd plant misconstrued

as missiles, 15 November 1973, photo
Nolberto Salinas

Souvenir pennant made to commemorate the

inauguration of the first kpd buildings, 1973
The text reads, 'A dignified roof for workers'
Courtesy Maria Elena Pivet

Full-size prototype of Chile's Cybersyn/

ops-room/iNTEC, 1971-73, designed by the
'Special Projects' research team at the
Industrial Design Area intect, from Gui
Bonsiepe, Teoría e pratica del disegno
industriale , 1975

Allende touring the kpd Factory with kpd's

director, Hugo Cabezas, on his left, and other
members of the joint Chilean-Soviet delegation,
25 January 1973, photo Nolberto Salinas

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 Clockwise from top left:

A female crane operator loads panels onto

a Soviet truck at the kpd plant, 1973
Photo Nolberto Salinas

A cameraman films the kpd story

for the local media, 22 August 1973
Photo Nolberto Salinas

A group comprised of kpd workers, local

officials and a musical band celebrates the

fabrication of one the factory's panels, 1973

Photo Nolberto Salinas

Photograph of a worker during the Unidad

Popular period, 27 December 1973
Photo Miguel Santiagos

Photomontage of a Soviet technicians in Chile

designed to commemorate the first kpd
buildings in Estero Viejo, El Belloto, 1973
Photo Nolberto Salinas

Aerial view of a group of kpd buildings built

in the Meseta El Gallo, Viña del Mar, 1974
Photo Nolberto Salinas

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/';-=09 )(8* =-0/']

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Colour photographs of kpd employees from 1973 and
1974, taken in the first year of Pinochet's dictatorship,
commissioned by the plant as souvenir gifts for the
workers, photos Nolberto Salinas

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Vargas came in and said, "this is crazy", and then went to talk to the conceiving their struggle as one in defence of a civilisation in dan-
person in charge... This official said to me, "Look Alberto, I have come ger'.3^ During this period, the initial, wide-eyed amazement at Soviet
to the very clear conclusion that there are no weapons here. I will stop technology, and the introduction of women into the factory, turned
the destruction of the factory. The whole thing is absurd ... personally I into something quite normal, part of a daily routine, kpd's official
think this technology is of the highest level and we should do every- photographer, Nolberto Salinas (who, remarkably, survived Allende's
thing we can to preserve it".'31 overthrow to occupy the same role under Pinochet), documents this
Within days of the coup, Patricio Núñez travelled from Santiago assimilation in his photographs from the time. Taken after 1973, in
to the KP d plant. Talking to Vargas, he learned that the new head of these images the new technology is no longer the protagonist but
the facility planned to reopen the factory using technical staff from appears as a secondary motive, as the backdrop, the ground rather
the navy. Núñez suggested that this would be impossible, because than the defining figure. The photographic record, now in full colour,
'if you want KPD to work again you need the people who know how is no longer used to present collective, institutional and ideological
to operate the machines; expert workers trained by the Russians. stories, but instead constructs personal narratives (now sold by the
These people have to be brought back. If you want to keep them photographer as souvenirs to the workers). With this, the role of the
as prisoners do so, but only as special prisoners who can operate the photograph shifts: no longer registering and advertising a factory,
machines, because these machines won't last forever. Vargas then it becomes a rather intimate, depoliticised agent in an emerging
asked me to identify these people, and so I said, well, on this family album.
machine it's this guy, on that machine, that other guy, etc. I knew Some time in the middle of 1975, and despite an extraordinary
degree of appropriation, Pinochet's radical application of neo-
everyone, and so I wrote down a list of names, only those workers
liberal economic policies would collide with a factory that was
who operated machines because they had specialised skills ... you
needed to know how to make them work. "And can we trust them"? still owned and managed by the state. The Chilean Construction
Vargas asked, "because they are all reds, but now that there is a working closely with the authoritarian regime and empow-
Council,
ered by its initial resistance to centralised building contracts,
counter-revolution they won't be so red for long, people soften fast".
His men then went back to Quilpué to pick them up ... and then
mobilised
the itself sufficiently enough to secure the elimination of the
factory got back into business. The day the workers returned to
KPD.the
The factory was auctioned off and then dismantled. Today, 36
KPD they were all called to stand in a line across the forecourt. I the site belongs to a private pharmaceutical company
years later,
remember my feeling of shock when Vargas said, "I've broughtwho
youhave replaced the first kpd panel at the factory's entrance with
all back because according to my information you are indispensable.
its own corporate logo: only two concrete supports indicate the spot
where
But you are now under my command, and it is my responsibility thatit once stood. The panel has only recently been found and
you won't escape. If you do, not only you but your families will saved
sufferfrom destruction by a former kpd worker (see opposite).
the fatal consequences ofyour actions".'32 Transformed into a sort of socialist ruin awaiting restoration and
As much as realising the importance of keeping the factory renewal,
run- the story of the kpd panel can in many ways be seen to
ning, up until 1975 Pinochet's dictatorship also maintaineddescribe the the different political, social and architectural cultures
industrial paradigm pursued by the previous government. It seems affected
as by the absorption of Soviet systems of préfabrication in
Chile.
if the military junta valued the qualities of the housing system in theIt reminds us that an understanding of architecture, urban-
same way as the socialists. But in order to symbolically forgiveism,
(andtechnology, design and gender is necessarily tied to a more
complexaset of relationships, and to the exercise of power, politics
erase) the 'original sin' of the factory's commemorative first panel,
process of ideological re-signification was carried out. Allende's and
sig-
culture. Allende's integral and scientific socialism called for the
creation of this new set of relations and social values. He did so by
nature was covered up and a religious altarpiece, with representa-
tions of the Virgin and Child, added between two colonial-stylereducing
lamp - to the barest minimum possible - any stimulus to privacy
fixtures. This erasing of a socialist emblem was supervisedandby
individualism, in favour of reconsidering labour as an essential
Admiral Vargas, but as Orlando Diaz recalls, before applying thehuman
ren-practice.36 Such socialist and scientific integration, he
der, KPD worker Ramón Olivo and architect Alberto Moya (displaying
argued, would strive for the creation of a new society and, above all,
a certain historical consciousness) first added a protective layer'aof
newoil
man'. Interviewed by the French journalist and academic
over the concrete so as not to destroy the signature beneath. Régis
TheDebray in 1971, Allende explained that 'Today we have to
appropriation of a once so important sign by covering it up, realise
and a sense of pedagogic labour, showing what it would be to
dressing it in the iconography of a traditional Chilean countryimagine
house"the new man"... I don't consider it Utopian to talk about
altar, was designed to remind workers of the divinity of the thisnew
new man. It would be Utopian only if we dreamt this man as liv-
administration. As much as the might of a right-wing military dicta-
ing in our society today, but he will emerge in a new society... He will
torship, it signified the triumph of Catholicism over socialism. be the product of a new social coexistence in a classless society.'3?
By 1974 the idea of recovering a Christian and Hispanic culture
While the idea of a new man is Soviet in origin and has multiple reso-
nances within philosophical and ideological milieus, and despite
was an integral part of the junta's declaration of aims and principles.
'A society inspired by Marxism must be rejected in Chile, giventhethat
fact that Allende's new man (as we have seen) was in many ways a
new woman, Allende's celebration of this figure seems to chime with
its totalitarian character and annihilation of the human being con-
tradicts all our Christian and Hispanic traditions. ExperienceChehas
Guevara's concerns for El Hombre Nuevo - the title of his collec-

tion of letters, essays and ideas published in 1973 - 'We can see, in
also shown that Marxism does not bring welfare, because its social-
ist character is not suited to adequate economic development.'33
this period of socialist construction, the birth of a new man. His
Thus, the leaders of the military dictatorship 'presented themselves
image is not yet finished; it could never be finished since its emer-
as those responsible for a Salvationist and purgatory crusade,
gence runs parallel to the development of new economic forms.'38

38 AA files 59

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 A Brief Personal Account of How the kpd Panel was Found

One morning in 2006, while walking to work , which more by luck than good judgement
was located close to the site of the old kpd factory where Г d worked all those years before ,
I came to the junction of Industrial Avenue and Worker Avenue. Passing by the front ofKnop
Laboratories (the company now operating out of the old kpd building) I suddenly felt the
earth shake beneath my feet, a powerful , brief tremor I soon realised was caused by the old
kpd panel crashing to the ground. I immediately went into the building and asked to meet
with the person in charge (really, no easy task). Nobody there seemed to appreciate the
significance of the panel, even less that it was one of the first produced by the factory and,
something known only to a few of us, underneath its surface render had been signed by
president Salvador Allende. An office assistant (for whom I shall always be extremely
grateful) then temporarily forsook his duties to explain to me that the panel had been
pulled down as it was to be destroyed and replaced by a newKnop logo. Eventually his boss
arrived, and with an attitude I immediately took against, our conversation quickly turned
into a heated debate - which ended up with me threatening him, saying that he would be
responsible for the destruction of an important piece of the community's heritage. He then
decided to talk to the owners of the factory and after a short phone conversation they
offered me an ultimatum -I could have the panel (but not the Virgin and Child attached
to it, which they wanted to keep) but I only had until seven o'clock that evening to remove it.
At that time I was secretary of the Ex-kpd Political Exonerated Association, and so I phoned
some fellow association members. Manuel Ramirez and comrade Pereira were the first
to arrive. Together we arranged for a crane truck to remove the panel and also called the
treasurer of our association to release the 30,000 pesos demanded by the crane operator
as afee. Later, as we transferred the panel to a nearby location on an old industrial site,
our association's vice-president, Verne Diaz, arrived, along with a Socialist Party
representative and council mayor Mauricio Viñambres. At the moment we are planning to
construct a memorial. We have all the elements for this monument in place - an old kpd
crane, a зт-high statue of a worker made out of scrap metal and donated by the council, a
new site in El Belloto and, of course, the panel itself, but we are still awaitingfinal approval
and funds from the council for this to happen ,35

Servando Mora Cofré

The commemorative kpd panel as it exists today, 3 June 2009

Allende's signature still remains underneath its surface render
Photo Hugo Palmarola Rodriguez

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Above right:

kpd's commemorative panel as modified

under Pinochet's dictatorship, 1974
Photo Nolberto Salinas

Images of the current condition of two

of the KPD blocks, in Estero Viejo (above),
built during Allende's period, and with the
addition of balconies and a pitched roof
in 'Jardín del Mar' (opposite), built during
the Chilean Navy's adminsitration of the
plant after 1974, 29-30 April 2007
Photos Hugo Palmarola

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 In order to define this new man, Guevara, as if rehearsing the old self equivalent to the panel. Down there in the scrapyard, aban-
dispute between the whole and the part, offers a description of the doned, and with weeds and wild grass growing in between the con-
'individual', an actor in this 'odd and fascinating drama that is the crete and rusted metal, we find this individual, isolated and deprived
construction of socialism, whose double existence is to be both of the tight communion with the solid structure of the community:
unique and a member of the community'. 39 For Guevara, anyone who perhaps an image of this new man's new fate. This, of course, is not a
has not experienced revolution will never understand the dialectic metaphor. It is the logic of assemblage as the rhetoric of Allende's
unity between the individual and the collective. 'No longer alone or socialism, each informing and defining the other, kpd's photo-
walking through lost pathways, avant-garde workers will walk graphic archive, in this sense, went far beyond a mere technical por-
together in tight communion with the masses.' Within socialism, he trait of a factory, and represented instead an integral part of both an
continues, men are more complete 'in spite of their apparent stan- ideological Cold War conflict and a mediated strategy deployed by
dardisation', and concludes that we will create 'a new man with a the Chilean government towards the social assimilation of a new
new technique'. 4° At a certain level, the logic of préfabrication and and foreign technology. As a building system, kpd was fundamental
assemblage encapsulated in the single panel is not so very different in the actual construction of Allende's scientific socialism, but at the
from the rhetoric underpinning the formation of such a socialist same time its more enduring construction was a visual rhetoric that
man. But the question, then, is not simply whether this panel would illustrated the 'image' of men 'who sooner rather than later will walk
symbolise a more complex set of relationships (from politics to gen- free through the great avenues that will open again to construct a
der, from technology to architecture), but whether this man 'is' him- better society'.*1

1. Salvador Allende, interviewed by Régis viewed by Hugo Palmarola, Tuesday 12. See Eden Medina, 'Democratic Social- Región: Luís Gerardo Otarola Valdês,
Debray, 'Allende habla con Debray', 11 April 2007, Providencia, Santiago. ism/Cybernetic Socialism: Making the Sergio Jorge Hidalgo Orrego y Hernán
Revista Punto Final, 16 March 1971, p 57. 4. See Blair A Ruble, 'From Khrushcheby Chilean Economy Public' in Bruno LatourLeopoldo Quezada Moneada (all in 1977).
2. Despite being ideologically linked to to Korobki' in William Craft Blumfield and Peter Weibel, Making Things Public: 29. Susan Sontag, On Photography (London:
the Soviet Union during the early 1970s, and Blair A Ruble (eds), Russian Housing Atmospheres ofDemocracy (Cambridge, Penguin, 1979), p 70.
the government led by Allende (1970- in the Modern Age -.Design and Social ma: mit Press, 2005), pp 708-21. 30. Orlando Diaz and Manuel Ramirez, op cit.
73) received scant political support and History (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- 13. Alberto Arenas, op cit. 31. Alberto Arenas, op cit.
little economic help from the ussr. By sity Press, 1993), p 235. 14. See Roger J Lewis, 'Mass Housing 32. Patricio Núñez, op cit.
the end of 1972, because of internal tur- 5. Alexander D'Hooghe, 'Siberia as for the Third World' , The Architect, 33. Declaración de principios del Gobierno
moil and political and economic resist- Analogous Territory: Soviet Planning June 1973, p 36. de Chile, Junta Militar, Santiago de Chile,
ance from the United States, Chilean and the Development of Science 15. Nikolai Leonov interviewed by Eugenia 11 March 1974.
hopes of being backed up by the ussr Towns' in AA Files 51, p 14. Fediakova et al, 'El General Nikolai 34. Sofia Correa et al, Historia del siglo xx
completely evaporated. Any help that 6. Ibid. Leonov en el сер' in Estudios Públicos chileno (Santiago: Editorial Sudamericana,
did materialise came only in the form of 7. See Isabel Turrent, 'El contexto interna- no 73, summer 1999, pp 73-74. 2001), p 284.
low-rate loans. Loans that did not begin cional del experimento chileno, 30 años 16. Alberto Arenas, op cit. 35. Servando Mora Cofré, 'A Brief Personal
with Allende but were the continuation después' in Francisco Zapata (ed), 17. Patricio Núñez, interviewed by Hugo Account of How the kpd Panel was

of a number of base agreements on Frágiles suturas: Chile a treinta años del Palmarola, 24 April 2007, Providencia, Found', letter received by Hugo Palmarola
'intermediate industries' signed Gobierno de Salvador Allende (Santiago: Santiago. on 14 February 2009. Servando Mora Cofré
between Chile and the ussr during the El Colegio de México - Fondo de 18. Valeri Viktorovich Serguéev, interviewed is Vice President of the Agrupación de
previous Christian-Democrat govern- Cultura Económica, 2006), p 66. by Hugo Palmarola, 27 September 2007. Exonerados Políticos de la ex-KPD,
ment of Eduardo Frei Montalva (1964- 8. ElSiglo, 1 June 1971. 19. Orlando Diaz, interviewed by Hugo Quilpue; and National Delegate in the
70), and which were agreed on the basis 9. See Joaquín Fernandois, Chile y el Palmarola, 30 April 2007, Villa Alemana. Users Council prais ddhh in Chile.
that the loans would be maintained mundo, 1970-1973: La política exterior 20. Ibid. 36. Salvador Allende, interviewed by Régis
even if the government changed - as 21. Patricio Núñez, op cit.
del Gobierno de la Unidad Popular y el sis- Debray, op cit, d 41.
it certainly did with the election of tema internacional (Santiago: Ediciones 22. Manuel Ramirez, interviewed by Hugo 37. Ibid, p 56.
Allende. Such policies were applied Universidad Católica de Chile, 1985), Palmarola, May 2007, Quilpué. 38. Ernesto Guevara, 'El Socialismo y el
under the agreement that they should PP 359, 370. 23. Jimena Castillo, 'Mujeres al Volante de Hombre en Cuba', in Ernesto Guevara,
be maintained in the very likely sce- 10. Isabel Turrent, La Unión Soviética en una Grúa: Reportaje a diez mujeres que El Hombre Nuevo (Buenos Aires:
nario that the government would América Latina: El caso de la Unidad decidieron reemplazar sus quehaceres Cuadernos de Crisis no 1, 1973), p 28.
change. See Isabel Turrent, 'El contexto Popular Chilena, 1970-1973 (México domésticos por la mecánica, los atornil- 39. Ibid, p 26.
internacional del experimento chileno, df: El Colegio de México, 1984), p 93. ladoresy las grúas ', Revista Paloma no 40. 11Ibid, pp 25, 29, 36.
30 años después' in Francisco Zapata 11. For more information on Gui Bonsiepe (Santiago: Editoriál Quimantú, 1972),41. From the final radio broadcast speech
(ed), Frágiles suturas: Chile a treinta see Gui Bonsiepe, Design im Übergang PP 33-35. of Salvador Allende, 11 September 1973,
años del Gobierno de Salvador Allende zum Sozialismus (Hamburg: Verlag 24. María Elena Pivet, interviewed byjimena Palacio de la Moneda, broadcast by
(Santiago: El Colegio de México - Fondo Designtheoria, 1974); on the history Castillo, ibid, p 34. Radio Magallanes.
de Cultura Económica, 2006), pp 68-69; of industrial design in Chile during 2 5 . María Elena Pivet, interviewed by
Isabel Turrent, La Unión Soviética en Allende's government see Hugo Hugo Palmarola, 15 May 2007, Quilpué. This paper is part of an ongoing research
América Latina: El caso de la Unidad Palmarola, 'Productos y Socialismo: 26. Irma Peralta, from Jimena Castillo, op cit. project titled 'Social and Industrial Culture
Popular Chilena, 1970-1973 (México df: Diseño Industrial Estatal en Chile' 27. Orlando Díaz, Manuel Ramirez and María of Soviet Large-Concrete Panel Factories in
El Colegio de México, 1984), p 94; and in Claudio Rolle (ed), La vida cotidiana Elena Pivet, op cit. Chile and Cuba: kpd and the Politics of

Olga Uliánova, 'La Unidad Popular y el de un año crucial (Santiago: Editorial 28. Detained and Missing, a working Préfabrication, 1968-1980' and is sponsored
Golpe Militaren Chile: Percepciones y Planeta, 2003) and Hugo Palmarola, document produced by Santiago's by a 2008/09 RIBA Research Trust Award.
análisis soviéticos' mEstudios Públicos, 'Diseño Industrial Chile y el Caribe' Archbishopric, Vicaría de la Solidaridad, In 2007 it was sponsored by the Vicerrectoria
no 79, Winter 2000, p 100. in Silvia Fernández and Gui Bonsiepe Santiago de Chile, 1994. These four cases Adjunta de Investigación y Doctorado de
3. Alberto Arenas, Head of the Sub- (eds), Historia del Diseño en América are mentioned in vol II: Casos Región la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Department of Industrialised Housing Latina (Sao Pãulo: Editorial Edgard Metropolitana: Nelsa Zulema Gadea Research collaborators: María Luisa Rivera
corvi under Salvador Allende, inter- Blücher, 2008). Galan (1973); and Tomo vu : Casos v and Valeri Viktorovich Serguéev

AA FILES 59 41

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A Panel's Tale: The Soviet KPD System and the Politics of Assemblage
Author(s): Pedro Ignacio Alonso and Hugo Palmarola
Source: AA Files , 2009, No. 59 (2009), pp. 30-41
Published by: Architectural Association School of Architecture

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