Location: 1570 Alameda
Preservation Status: A National Monument in the category of Typical Zone “Calle Dieciocho”
The Palacio Íñiguez (also registered as Edificio Íñiguez) was built in 1908 by architects and builders Alberto Cruz Montt and Ricardo Larraín Bravo.
The building, built by order of don Eduardo Iñiguez Tagle as his residence, recreates the French Renaissance style. Numerous ornamental details, such as statues, medallions and garlands, intertwine in the undulating facade and slightly curved balconies, giving the building a particularly dynamic and special movement.
The two upper floors were originally designated as the Íñiguez Undurraga family residence. The first level housed shops, among them the traditional Confitería Torres, one of the oldest restaurants in the city is Santiago.
The Iguiñez Palace is an example of the grandeur and importance of the structures built in the early 20th Century in the traditional center of Santiago and responds to the romantic beliefs that stems from the end of the 19th Century. Most buildings from this period (1850-1920) show the accomplishment of the oligarchical families in the city and were built in Baroque and neo-Classical style.
The Iguiñez Palace is located in the Barrio Dieciocho, surely the most Europeanized sector in the capital city. The spaces and social rites rekindled at the end of the 19th Century, recall the educational ideals of the academic and intellectual class of 1842, which went hand in hand with the creation of the University of Chile.
The republican ideas of European orientation helped to build spaces and ideals that determined distinctive ways of thinking and discussing. In this city in the making, the newly-born middle class and oligarchy promoted spaces, classrooms, and neighborhoods that in the middle of the Nineteenth Century resumed the path of the French Revolution and the 18th Century Enlightening. The so-called French belle époque arrived in Santiago and found a consistent place inspired by the ideals of a Republic with public education, intellectual life and training of the elite; Universidad y Nación, Sol Serrano; Editorial Universitaria.
Duoc UC is the current owner.