An Architecture of Technical Assistance: The failed BRECAST project in 1970s Britain and Chile Felipe Aravena THIS DISSERTATION RECONSTRUCTED THE failed Technical Assistance project between the UK and Chile, involving the adoption of the prefabricated BRECAST Large-Panel System (LPS), in the early 1970s. The product of their collaboration was to be a 200-flat pilot project in the outskirts of Santiago. When the scheme was still in an early stage of design, it was broken up by the coup d’état in Chile in September 1973. The relevance of this chapter in the history of architecture and building for Chile, and the history of the BRECAST building system in general, has been overlooked within architectural literature in both Chile and Britain. This is possibly because of the absence of an object of study, since no buildings were erected in Santiago, or because BRECAST was a prefabricated system intended for application in developing countries, then seen as irrelevant for the mainstream literature. The collaboration between the countries started in September 1972 when the Chilean government hosted VIEXPO, an international housing exhibition whose objective was the exchange of experience, knowledge and technological and industrial innovations in the social housing realm.1 There, the UK presented the recently developed, low-cost prefabricated system, designed by Nares Craig from the Building Research Establishment (BRE). The presentation was an attempt from the Overseas Division of the BRE to position their building industry and research developments within the broader post-colonial market. The development of BRECAST in early 1970s Britain was the confluence point of three trajectories: Nares Craig’s own expertise; decades of European experience in pre-cast concrete; and the environment provided by the BRS/BRE, a public institution that encouraged building research, development and application. The main 16
idea behind the system was to use the financial restrictions and abundance of labour in developing countries as constraints for the design, triggering the adoption of simpler structures assembled from the smallest number of parts, and the minimisation of mechanical equipment. The system envisaged on-site production of the concrete panels using cheap, simple, and lightweight machinery that could be easily dismounted and transported to a new site. This eliminated the need to build factories, enabling cost-efficient production even for small housing projects. The government of the Popular Unity (PU), led by Salvador Allende and following the Chilean Road to Socialism programme, showed great interest in the system. The Chileans saw in BRECAST a tool to fulfil one of the goals of their programme: to remedy the housing deficit during their sixyear term in office, estimated in 1970 to be 600,000 homes. The government officers knew that prefabrication was not a complete answer to Chile’s housing deficit and the underdevelopment of its building industry, and also were aware of the higher costs of system building compared to traditional craft.2 Hence, the motivation behind the PU government’s preference for industrialised housing, rather than economic, was statedriven modernisation. This technological predilection had an undoubtedly political goal since Allende viewed science and technology as both a reflection of Chile’s socialist ideals and an essential part of their realisation.3 Soon both governments were working towards the building of the pilot project. At the start of 1973, the BRE was sure that the first-ever BRECAST scheme would be in Santiago, as one of the many Technical Assistance projects between both governments. The political differences between an openly Marxist government and British