KARLA
MONTAUTI

Award-winning architecture and art practice working across buildings, territories and cultural narratives.

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    VALDIVIA LIBRARY


    VALDIVIA LIBRARY
    Public Library / Cultural Building
    International Competition
    Valdivia, Chile

    Valdivia Library begins with a simple idea: reading in front of the river.

    Conceived as a building of knowledge and a public shelter for contemplation, the project understands the library as an open and permeable container — a place capable of protecting, gathering and pausing, while remaining deeply connected to the landscape.

    The surrounding natural park becomes the starting point for a new relationship with the river. The proposal extends public space from Avenida Picarte towards the waterfront through a large multipurpose plaza-balcony: a civic platform for wandering, meeting, reading and contemplating the movement of water, breeze and humidity.

    This first gesture defines the spatial structure of the project: an “above” and a “below”. The plinth contains the most grounded and technical programmes — archive, storage and support areas — while the elevated body opens towards the landscape, organising the reading rooms around different conditions of light, sound, silence, movement and pause.

    Rather than treating the library as an isolated object, the project proposes a public interior connected to territory: a warm civic threshold between knowledge, landscape and river.

    Organised by: Ministerio de Obras Públicas, Chile
    Program: Public library / Cultural building
    Location: Valdivia, Chile

    Argentina Design Team: Karla Montauti, Leandro Crook and Gabriel Ramírez
    Chile Design Team: Cristian Araya
    Team assistance: Amanda Schmitt-Fiebig and Javiera Muñoz
    3D visualisation: Alex Andino and Leandro Crook





















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