Qualitative, historical, spatial, stylistic, and social assessment of heritage buildings in Arequipa for Cultural Heritage teaching in Schools of Architecture

Abstract

[EN] The old town of Arequipa - Peru was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000. The architectural style of the buildings in the city of Arequipa has evolved, adapting to the prevailing architectural trends over time, and to the constant earthquakes that have marked the pattern of its transformation through history. Some of the main identified styles are Andean baroque, neo-colonial, historicist, modernist, and postmodernist. This project proposes a qualitative, historical, spatial, and stylistic analysis of the buildings built in the city according to academic criteria and the collective memory of the inhabitants of Arequipa. The applied method consists of a stage-by-stage evaluation of the main representative buildings in the city using mapping and matrix tabulations from graphic documentation, in situ surveys, academic criteria according to the categories of antiquity, historicity, instrumentality and artistic value. In addition, the study aims to reflect the point of view of the buildings’ inhabitants, whilst becoming a useful tool for them. It will result in the development of a catalog of relevant buildings that will help to understand their representativeness in society.