In previous issues of Bolivian Express we have talked about La Paz and its transport system, its rivers and its people. We’ve also written about El Alto, about its exuberant cholets and unbridled expansion. For this October issue we are commemorating La Paz by looking at its newest transportation infrastructure and architecture.
Back in its infancy, La Paz was an assemblage of chozas spread along the Choqueyapu River. Brick by brick, the city grew, and bigger houses made of adobe were built by the original (and enslaved) inhabitants of the area. And here, on 16 July 1809, the first independence of Latin America was declared by Pedro Domingo Murillo. (It would last only six months.)
The city’s first larger structures were in the colonial style, but few of these buildings are still standing in La Paz. Charles Bladon explains why (p.11). Nowadays, you will most likely stumble upon Republican Architecture – such as the Palacio Quemado on Plaza Murillo – and Art Deco buildings, a part of the larger Modernist movement, which Josephine Zavaglia delves into (p.27). These two very different styles, which exist side by side today, date from the 19th and 20th centuries, from when the city experienced its most intense growth.
In the early 1900s, about 50,000 people lived in La Paz; 50 years later the population reached 300,000. The city had to adapt to the incoming flow of migrants and needed a new cityscape. Visionaries such as architect Emilio Villanueva made this possible. Villanueva was the first to bring the notion of urbanism to Bolivia and reinvented the city between 1910 and 1925 by designing whole neighbourhoods and avenues.
Today, the paceño is impressed by el teleférico and its modernity – as Matthew Grace uncovers (p.14) – but back then, it was all about the tramway. In 1909, the first line opened. It served the areas of Obrajes, Miraflores, the General Cemetery and Plaza España amongst others; there was a first and a second class for passengers, and in 1936 the network extended throughout 20 lines. The tramway was el teleférico of yesteryear. It closed quietly in 1950 for financial and safety reasons. Then the automobile began to invade the city’s arteries, causing more and more accidents. Now the only way to avoid the traffic is above the skyline, riding the cable cars.
The city kept on growing, with another wave of rural migration from the 1970s to the 1990s that brought the population to current levels – about 800,000 people. Neighbourhoods spread towards the south and onto the slopes of La Paz’s surrounding canyon, but since the 1990s, La Paz is, in terms of population, the city we know today. However, the city’s stunted growth is something that could be remedied. I interviewed Xavier Iturralde, an entrepreneur and urban visionary, who is working on reconceptualising the city (p.32).
If you take a walk in the city centre, chances are you will walk past Plaza Murillo, named after the aforementioned revolutionary. As Bolivian writer Jaime Saenz described it, ‘La Plaza Murillo resume la historia de Bolivia en su totalidad.’ (‘Plaza Murillo sums up Bolivian history in its totality.’) There couldn’t be a more apt description. The square is encircled by buildings that have seen Bolivia’s history unfold, by walls against which ex-presidents have been executed and by cobblestones where many have fallen dead fighting for democracy. And the buildings themselves tell a story. On one corner is a decaying house meant to be demolished soon, next to it is the Legislative Assembly with its clock running backwards and across the square is the Palacio Quemado. Behind the cathedral the towering Casa del Pueblo is growing, intended to house the current government and to represent modernity and the future of Bolivia.
Matthew Grace asked the people of La Paz what they thought about this ‘house of the people’ (p.20). From passers-by’s reactions, paceños don’t seem convinced by this giant concrete-and-brick monolith. But paceños are the sort that look ahead and embrace modernity. Looking at the city when perched up in a cable car, one sees an improbable combination of bricks and glass, old and new, historical and modern. The city and its architecture are a fitting representation for the diverse people who inhabit it.
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Photo: Xavier Iturralde
Man of Change
I am meeting with Xavier Iturralde, founder of the Spazio Wellness and Lounge gymnasiums. The first thing he tells me is: ‘I am paceño. I love my city.’ His love and commitment to La Paz has been passed down to him generation after generation by a long line of dedicated paceños. More than a successful entrepreneur, he is a man with a vision and a mission for his city and country. Now Iturralde is working on a new urban landscape for La Paz, no less.
Back in 2002, Iturralde started as a fitness instructor. Twelve years later he opened his first Spazio Wellness and Lounge gymnasium in Calacoto. Two more followed, one in Sopocachi and another in El Alto. A fourth one will open soon in Cochabamba. But this is just a starting point for Iturralde’s ambitions. The dedication and passion that took him to where he is now led him to start Fundación Kalasasaya. The foundation’s mission is to revitalise the city of La Paz, to reconceptualise the city and create spaces and axes that will allow it to grow organically and rapidly.
As a boy, Xavier Iturralde dreamt of infrastructures, of a city that keeps growing, that reflects its inhabitants’ spirits
As a boy, Iturralde dreamt of infrastructures, of a city that keeps growing, that reflects its inhabitants’ spirits – a dream that is now becoming reality. ‘Since 1910–25, La Paz has been using the same urban area,’ Iturralde tells me. ‘The city hasn’t been taken care of.’ And there is space for La Paz to grow. Iturralde sees a potential for La Paz to expand in a way that is hard to imagine when you experience the trancaderas and everyday congestions. But it’s with confidence that he tells me that ‘in 20 years there could be eight million inhabitants in La Paz.’ With now under two million inhabitants in La Paz and El Alto combined, that’s a bold statement, but after Iturralde explains more details about his project and the idea behind it, it makes sense.
This October, Fundación Kalasasaya will unveil its new metropolitan centre project. This means a new city centre, a new area that will dynamise neighbourhoods and allow the city’s growth. There is also a project for a metropolitan avenue with six lanes that will extend through the city and into a new industrial park. Iturralde emphasises the use of the word ‘metropolitan’ because this project is about the city itself. Part of the impetus for this mega-project is his belief that important aspects of the city’s development have been abandoned since the 1960s. ‘The focus of the development [in the past] has been social, but there needs to be a balance between the social and the economic [elements],’ Iturralde explains.
And Iturralde has even more projects on the horizon that also aim to reconfigure the urban landscape. One project strives to turn the city greener by planting small plants along the city’s many riverbanks. Another is to work with the famed Bolivian artist Roberto Mamani Mamani to create a urban gallery by painting hundreds of building façades. The city’s roads can also be reengineered with bicycle lanes placed in specific places to coordinate with other transport systems while integrating green axes. Iturralde is also working on setting up recycling plants to create a market of products to export to Chile and Peru.
Because the foundation is working with the support of the federal and municipal government and foreign concerns, Iturralde’s vision might come to fruition in the next few years – at least partially. The ideas and motivations behind these projects are certainly ambitious, but they are in response to an even larger need. Talking with Iturralde, the picture he paints is an integral one. ‘La Paz is supporting the whole economy of the altiplano, and investing in La Paz is investing in the whole region,’ he tells me. Politically, he believes, it’s also an asset. The more developed La Paz and the surrounding region are, the more pressure and weight there are to claim access to the sea, for instance. ‘The other countries in South America centralise all their power in one city, but Bolivia has the possibility to have two major poles of development. That’s a very powerful prospect.’
‘Paceños are warriors. They built and made the city thrive’
For Bolivia, having La Paz and Santa Cruz pull the country forward could forge an economic and political balance. But for all of this to happen, La Paz needs to grow. ‘The city needs new spaces, a new airport, new people,’ Iturralde says. As a paceño, he feels that the people have forgotten who they were, who they are. ‘Paceños are warriors. They built and made the city thrive,’ Iturralde tells me. ‘La Paz is a lion that has fallen asleep.’ For the city to awake, Iturralde asserts, it needs new leadership, which is only possible by making the area more attractive so that La Paz can attract new people. A visionary and a leader himself, Iturralde is propelling the changes he wants to see happen and setting the stage for the La Paz he has been dreaming about.
Are we just walking around, step after step?
Or are we designers of our present, designers of something bigger?
Can we avoid the victim we hold inside?
Take another step, and find comfort in every blink we present.
Or is our ignorance not letting us see beyond the obvious?
Amongst shadows, Design.
Will we get it right?
In shadows, Create.
