Abstract
On several occasions, the poet Pablo Neruda referred to Isla Negra as his favorite house and, for many years, he worked to transform it into his primary home. The building of this house, an incremental process over time that saw Neruda’s direct participation in its planning, constitutes a perfect case study for understanding the poet’s intention in the construction of his particular environment: the Nerudian space. Much has been written on Neruda’s houses, but the novelty of the approach presented here lies in the configurational perspective that privileges both the totality (instead of the parts) and the historical process behind its construction (instead of the final product). This article presents a morphological study of the Isla Negra house, using the Space Syntax methodology and analyzing the parts and stages of growth of the house in relation to one another and among themselves until Neruda’s last intervention in 1973.
If my poetry has a meaning at all, it is this spatial, unlimited
tendency, which is not satisfied with one habitation
Pablo Neruda
Introduction
Among Neruda’s many quotes about his houses, the quote above explains much about the intrinsic relation between his poetry and his living spaces. The dynamic of his houses, with their incremental processes through time, is the concrete expression of this “spatial, unlimited tendency.” Neruda’s poetry was so extended, intense, and plural that it required varied, emblematic, and creative spaces. It is as if Neruda spatialized his poetry; as such, it does not become “satisfied with one habitation.” 1
Neruda’s houses enchant and acquire a sort of idiosyncrasy reflected in their form, the mixture of building materials, and also in their growth process, which included multiple construction stages. They have been the object of several books and academic papers (Bottiglieri, 2009; González de Canales, 2007; Mayorga, 1996; Valenzuela, 2000; Vial, 2010); however, most approaches have analyzed them part-by-part or space-by-space. Valenzuela (2000), for instance, argues that the fact that the houses have been built in parts, or little by little, prevents them from being analyzed as a global project. This understanding seems also to prevail when Mayorga (1996) explains that her analysis is made by independent spatial readings of the plans, due to the absence of related spaces between floors.
For some scholars, Neruda’s houses were built according to his collections—those elements that he found and wished to gather in one single space (Vial, 2010). There is no doubt that such “things”—as some refer to the acquisitions of collections, furniture, and memorabilia that he brought from many places—play a fundamental role in the work and life of Pablo Neruda (Vial, 2010). In fact, some authors consider that his houses were not to be seen as houses in a strict sense, but as numerous parts, each one a sort of trunk meant to keep and shelter the things that he had collected throughout the years (Bottiglieri, 2009). This line of thought is supported by the fact that although Neruda wrote abundantly about “things” (the snails, the figureheads of ships, or the onions), he did not write about space.
The premise of this article lies in what that space, as much as the collections it contains, has much to say about Pablo Neruda. In this sense, the study of Neruda’s houses is related to the understanding that “cultural ideas are objectively present in artifacts as much as they are subjectively present in minds” (Hillier et al., 1987: 363). Despite his admirable architects, Neruda’s direct participation in the planning of his houses serves as an expression of his thoughts and gives us the opportunity to understand his conception of space and him as an architect, not only a builder.
Given the importance of the history of these spaces in the life of the poet, the present article is a contribution to studies about Neruda’s houses, employing a perspective that privileges both the totality (instead of the parts) and the process (instead of the final product). Space Syntax methods and approach have much to offer in this perspective. Following Hillier et al. (1976, 1987), who state that spatial configurations and social relations of process are expressed in space, the parts and the stages of growth of the house are analyzed in their relation to one another and among themselves.
In the following article, a morphological study of the Isla Negra house is presented, considering each stage of its growth and change until the last of Neruda’s interventions in 1973. The article is structured in four parts: (a) context, (b) methodology, (c) stages of growth, (d) configurational analysis, and (e) preliminary findings.
Historical context of Neruda and the house
Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto was born in 1904 in Parral, a small city in the south of Chile. It was not until 1946 when he officially took the name Pablo Neruda, under which he was awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1971. He died in September 1973 at the age of 69, in the capital city of Santiago, after leading a prolific sentimental, political, and intellectual life: the life of a poet. The house of Isla Negra, located in a small seaside town in Chile, was the place where he produced some of his most significant poetry. Figure 1 shows images of the house as it was left by Pablo Neruda.
Isla Negra House. Pictures: Franciney França (2013).
Pablo Neruda’s life was directly linked to the cultural and political history of Chile. In the period between 1927 and 1943, he was consul and then ambassador to several countries; 2 in returning to Chile, he was elected Senator in 1945. Between 1949 and 1952, he left Chile in political exile. In 1969, he withdrew his candidacy for the presidency of the country in support of Salvador Allende, a socialist who was democratically elected for President in 1970. 3 Despite the years, Neruda lived outside of his country, he declared himself to be an “integral Chilean” (“un chileno integral”), who enjoyed living with his friends in his homeland (Franulic, 1952).
There was a sentimental, political, poetic, and physical relation between Neruda and his country, and the houses are among the elements that made this connection concrete. The Isla Negra house emerged from Pablo Neruda’s need to have a place where he could dedicate himself to one of his most important books;
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Canto General was largely written at this house. The period also coincides with intense political activity by the poet, including his time as a Senator of the Chilean Republic. He said, I started to write the Canto General, I needed a place to work. I found a stone house in front of the ocean, in a place that was unknown to the entire world, named Isla Negra. (Neruda, 2008: 191)
The Neruda houses grew over the course of the years, similar to the process followed by a living organism. This was how he saw the house in Isla Negra: “the house went on growing, as we do, as the trees do…” (Neruda, 2004: 89). The original house, approximately 68 m2, increased in size to over 440 m2, as shown in Figure 2.
The Isla Negra house with walls of the original house in gray.
According to Mayorga (1996), the Isla Negra house underwent four major expansion processes: (a) in 1943, with a project by Rodríguez Arias; (b) between the years of 1945 and 1965, with changes that were made by Neruda and Rafael Plaza (Rafita), his builder; (c) between 1965 and 1973, with projects by Sergio Soza; and (d) the final intervention, which was begun by Neruda and Rafael Plaza in 1973.
But the history of the enlargements in Isla Negra is much more complex. Among the non-build projects—changes and modifications executed beyond the scope of a project—there is a long history of construction at the residence. In a more detailed chronology, seven stages of enlargement and modification of the house in Isla Negra were identified over a range of 30 years, from 1943 to 1973.
Methodology
In this long process, the first set of research questions arises: what is the underlying structure of the house? What are its morphological characteristics? Are there structural and/or morphological changes present in each stage? To approach these questions, the research uses the Syntax theory and methodological approach,
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which are based on the concept of spatial configuration, defined as follows: …configuration is defined in general as, at least, the relation between two spaces taking into account a third, and, at most, as the relations among space in a complex taking into account all other spaces in the complex. Spatial configuration is thus a more complex idea than spatial relation, which need invoke no more than a pair of related spaces. The theory of space syntax is that it is primarily—though not only—through spatial configuration that social relations on process express themselves in space. (Hillier et al., 1987: 363)
Although it uses the same theoretical and methodological framework, the present study has a different goal, which is to unveil a Nerudian conception of home spaces, analyzing the spatial configuration of the house through its successive stages of growth. Such a perspective privileges the totality, instead of the parts, and the process, instead of the final product, comparing the original plan and its modifications in relation to the phase of the author’s life. The final aim is to understand the hidden spatial structure of the poet’s particular environment: the Nerudian space.
The stages of growth
In order to link the modifications of space to the poet’s work and life, we have carried out an estimation of the dates when the changes in the house took place, based on bibliographical data and archive images. We identified seven (VII) enlargement phases from 1943 to 1973.
Enlargement I
In 1943, Neruda forwarded a sketch of the first enlargement to the house in Isla Negra to architect Germán Rodríguez Arias
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(Figure 3(b)). In the same year, the architect presented his proposal for the enlargement, based on Pablo Neruda’s sketches (Figure 4). A comparison between the proposals of Neruda and Rodríguez Arias shows what González de Canales called a “negotiation that the latter kept with the poet, showing the attempts of the Catalonian in order to solve some of the creative ideas proposed by Neruda” (Gonzáles de Canales, 2007).
The original house in 1938, Neruda’s sketch proposal in 1943 and the first enlargement in 1945. Rodríguez Arias' proposal in 1943.
Figure 3 shows the original construction, in 1938, and the first enlargement, in 1945, as a result of those two proposals. Both in Neruda’s sketch and in the preliminary project by Rodríguez Arias (Figures 3(b) and 4, respectively), it becomes clear that the enlargement integrated the new volume (on the right) to the existing one (on the left) through a new iconic element: the stone tower. But Rodríguez Arias added and modified other spaces: the mezzanine (“altillo”) grew in importance by becoming Neruda’s first library and the entrance to a new room: the tower bedroom; generated a covered corridor (“corredor”) overlooking the sea; gave a more intense use of the tower as an element linking the volumes (several points of access); added bathroom and a toilet close to the entrance; and incorporated a porch as an intermediate space between the exterior and the interior.
From the standpoint of form, there are only a few differences between the project proposed by Arias and Neruda’s sketch: (a) the living room loses the orthogonal shape proposed by Neruda; (b) the roof of the tower, which is flat in Arias’ proposal, in contrast to the traditional pitched roof proposed by Neruda. 12 There is a photographic record of the tower with the flat coverage proposed by Arias, 13 but Neruda’s proposal prevailed.
The first enlargement shows that: (a) the corridor that linked the two volumes in Arias’ preliminary project (Figure 4) was not built (Figure 3(c)); (b) another space, which is not found in the Rodríguez Arias’ preliminary project, was also built near the tower bedroom and becoming Neruda’s first office at the house; (c) in the first improvement, instead of the two bedrooms located in the original house, a large dining room was built and an external staircase to access the tower bedroom was added (Rafael Plaza, 2013, personal communication).
The first stage of enlargement can be understood as a negotiation between both proposals, in which the following elements prevailed: (a) the compound of two volumes connected by a tower, the first of which was the original house; (b) the second volume, consisting of a bathroom, porch, large living room with a double height ceiling and a mezzanine (“altillo”), providing internal access to the tower bedroom (Bottiglieri, 2004; Calderon and Folch, 2004) and a space on the upper floor, which, according to a worker of Casa Museo de Isla Negra, had been Neruda’s first office, and the place where he wrote the book “Alturas de Macchu Picchu”
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(Figure 5, in purple).
Phases of enlargement and convex spaces.
Enlargement II
The decade of the 1950s deeply marked Pablo Neruda’s life. The years of 1949 to 1952 were a period of strong political activity and intense amorous activity, including his clandestine love life with Matilde Urrutia. Neruda returned to Chile in 1952, and in 1955, he officially divorced Delia Del Carril, who had been his wife, to pursue his romance with Matilde. 15
According to Mayorga (1996: 96), in the period between 1945 and 1965, the house underwent modifications by Neruda and Rafael Plaza. 16 This period encompasses four extensions: (a) the construction of Matilde-Neruda’s first bedroom; (b) Matilde-Neruda’s second bedroom; (c) the enlargement of the kitchen of the original house; (d) the bar and modifications in the old dining room of the original house. According to Valenzuela (2004), these changes were made in the years 1950, 1952, 1958, and 1965, respectively (Figure 5—in yellow).
Nevertheless, according to Plaza, this second stage of enlargement started with the construction of Pablo Neruda and Matilde’s first bedroom, in 1952, when Neruda returned from exile (Rafael Plaza, 2013, personal communication). This construction was carried out because Matilde did not want to inhabit the bedroom that had been used by Neruda and Delia Del Carril (Mayorga, 1996: 96). Also, according to Calderon and Folch (2004: 30), in 1955, with the end of his marriage to Delia, Neruda requested that Rodríguez Arias make further changes to the house of Isla Negra.
Enlargement III
After the second modification, Neruda and Matilde decided to build another bedroom on the second floor, on pillars, with a view of the ocean (Valenzuela, 2000). This construction must have taken place close to the year 1958 (Rafael Plaza, 2013, personal communication)—and as such, it is the date to be used in this study. The access to the bedroom of Matilde-Neruda is reached internally, by a staircase that was placed in the old dining room of the original house.
According to information obtained during a visit to the Isla Negra house, even though the door that provided access to the outer side of this dining room remains, this access was interrupted by the construction of the staircase that leads to the couple’s second bedroom. Therefore, in this stage, from the Syntax point of view, there are significant interventions to the original house.
In 1958, the kitchen in the original house also underwent changes and was enlarged with the construction of a smaller dining space adjoined to the kitchen as seen in Figure 5, in blue (Rafael Plaza, 2013, personal communication).
Enlargement IV
Between 1958 and 1965, a bar was added and modifications were made in the old dining room of the original house, which had since acquired two wine cellars, or “bodegas” (Mayorga, 1996). The bar and cellar are two important elements also found in the other Neruda houses. The bar was a part of his lifestyle and became a necessary space in the residence. It has been written that at first, Neruda and his friends used to meet by nightfall under the couple’s room (on pillars) to drink and talk (Mayorga, 1996; Vial, 2004). Eventually, Neruda and Matilde felt the need to close and delimit this space. With its glass walls and an open view onto the Pacific Ocean, the bar became one of the most privileged places of the house (see Figure 5, in lilac).
Although the chronology on the enlargements provided by Mayorga (1996) and Valenzuela (2000) are clarifying, they only encompass changes made to the internal space of the house that were directly linked to new spaces; for example, the current large dining room, as already mentioned. This stage included new spaces and modifications to those already existing.
The major changes that took place in the original house are: (a) in place of the two bedrooms, there is now a large dining room; (b) in place of the original dining room, there are now two cellars and a staircase providing access to Neruda-Matilde’s bedroom; (c) there is an intermediate before the dining room establishing a new access to the kitchen.
This period is characterized as one of the most important in the history of the expansion of the house. First, because it marked an intervention without the presence of an architect, carried out at a time when Pablo Neruda freely exerted his architectural creativity. Second, because it represents the materialization of the main nucleus of the house, where the most important, intimate, and social spaces (the bedrooms, the main living room, the large dining room, and the bar) are established.
Enlargement V
According to the historiography (Mayorga, 1996), the second house enlargement project, in 1945, was also carried out by the architect Rodríguez Arias. Yet, this proposal was resumed in 1965 (Calderon and Folch, 2004; Mayorga, 1996; Valenzuela, 2000), when Rodríguez Arias had already returned to Spain. At that moment, Neruda invited his friend and professor at the University of Chile, architect Sergio Soza, to carry out the modifications.
There is no precise date for the two enlargement stages that took place under the lead charge of Sergio Soza. However, Mayorga (1996) states that the last change, to the snail room began in 1973, the year of Pablo Neruda’s death. This means that Sergio Soza’s changes took place between 1965 and 1973, and that the first stage of these modifications (to the second library) wasn’t finished until 1966. Therefore, the first part of the changes proposed by Sergio Soza had been already implemented in that year (Figure 5—in orange).
Enlargement VI
The second stage of Sergio Soza’s project includes the horse room and the office, as seen in Figure 5 in dark blue (Rafael Plaza, 2013, personal communication).
Enlargement VII
In 1973, the last enlargement of Isla Negra started with the construction of the snail room under the lead of Neruda and Rafael Plaza. With Neruda’s death, the construction was interrupted and not resumed again until 1995.
It is important to highlight that in 1973, there was already a part of the house dedicated for a caregiver/chauffeur, next to the horse room and the snail room. However, data on the date of its construction was not found. Therefore, we cannot conclude with precision during which enlargement stage of Isla Negra was built, but we can consider it in the syntax analysis of this final enlargement that coincides with the reading of the final version of the house shown in Figure 5, which details modifications phases and the decomposition of several areas into convex spaces.
Configurational analysis
To understand the deep structure of the house and be able to unveil the poet’s intention in the construction of his particular environment—what we have called the “Nerudian space”—a configurational analysis of the house through the enlargement process was carried out.
Our literature review on the subject showed that the house has been described as being separated in two volumes: (a) the volume that was built until 1965, before the arches; (b) the volume that emerged after 1965, between the arches and the snail room (Mayorga, 1996: 127). According to Mayorga, the second volume differs from the first (1943–1965) in that it is more introverted, due to the fact that its spaces were arranged according to specific objects and collections. This volume is characterized by the fact that the spaces it contains are turned into it. This is due to the fact that this ‘area of the house concurs in function of the objects that it harbors, such as collections or books of the library, and for this reason the spatial meaning inverts itself vis-à-vis the previous volumetry, given that now the space concurs inwards, and not outwards as in the previous case. (Mayorga, 1996: 133) Graphs of the house enlargements. Integration Measure of the Main Spaces. Sketches of Pablo Neruda (a) and Rodríguez Arias (b) in 1945.
Spatial structure
From the Space Syntax point of view, the first enlargement reveals that Neruda’s proposal, Rodríguez Arias’ suggestions, and what was effectively built are three quite different things. The graphs in Figure 6 show the original house (Graph 0), both proposals (Graphs a and b) and what was finally built (Graph I). In fact, while Neruda’s proposal (Graph a) brought the mean depth of the nodes from 2.3 to 2.2, by almost doubling the number of nodes (from 7 to 11) but keeping the same total depth. On the contrary, Rodriguez Aria’s proposal (Graph b) increased the nodes to 19 and the depth of the system to 7, increasing the mean depth to 2.8; but simultaneously increasing the number of rings in the system. It is important to note that Rodriguez Arias specifically increased the depth of the branch leading to Neruda’s bedroom.
The built house at this stage, which constitutes the first stage in the growth process of the house (Graph I), is a compromise between both proposals: it brings the mean depth to 2.5 but maintains the ring-like structure of the system. It is important here to note that the deep branch leading to Neruda’s bedroom is turned into a deep ring that will be kept through all the successive enlargements.
The dynamism of the creative and constructive processes that came through the partnership between Neruda and Rodríguez Arias managed to produce a house that more than doubled its convex spaces to accommodate new functions (from 7 to 20) while keeping the system shallow (from 4 to 5 in total depth). Apart from several rings that run along its base, there is a deep ring starting at the mezzanine (Node 10), which includes the spaces of the second floor, such as the bedroom of Neruda-Delia del Carril (Node 12), the office (Node 13), the stairs (Node 16), and the exterior (Node 20).
In terms of depth, the way it was effectively built (Graph I) is closer to Neruda’s proposal (Graph a), with four levels, than to that of Arias (Graph b with seven levels), and compared to the morphological structure of the original house (Graph 0), Neruda’s proposal is closer to that of the initial house (as he adds new spaces but maintains the same depth to the exterior). Graph I also shows the new spaces after the first enlargement (in black) and the spaces in the original house (in gray), revealing a significant increase in convex spaces.
The tower consolidates itself as an important morphological element in the proposals, as it potentiates the permeability of the system. It is the link between the two volumes, and, both in Neruda’s proposal (Graph a, Node 8) and in the final building at this first stage (Graph I, Node 5), it is an important element in relation to the exterior. In the final version, Neruda’s initial proposal prevailed, in which the tower is directly accessed from the outside, even though this access had to be made by the rear of the house and not by the main façade, as he had proposed.
The period through the II, III, and IV enlargements marks a significant change in the configuration of the house (see Figure 6). In comparison to the first enlargement, the house is still relatively shallow—with only six levels—even though there is a significant increase of convex spaces, from 22 to 36 convex spaces, while the depth of the system remains unaltered after the second change (see Graphs II, III, and IV in Figure 6).
Nevertheless, in the first enlargement (Graph I), the privacy of the intimate spaces was increased (Nodes 11 and 12), such as the spaces close to the tower on the second floor that are deepest in relation to the exterior. After the second enlargement, these spaces became shallower (Node 21, for instance). The bedrooms of Matilde-Neruda (Nodes 21 and 25) are even shallower, both at level 3 (Figure 6—Graphs II, III, and IV).
These intimate spaces are as shallow as the main living room (Nodes 7 and 8) and are also located on levels 2 and 3 (Figure 6—Graphs II, III, and IV). This demonstrates that Neruda’s keenness for shallower systems seems, at last, to have been materialized.
The graphs in Figure 6 show an existing morphological standard that remains unaltered through the V, VI, and VII enlargement phases of the Isla Negra house, confirming the deep configurational structure of the house. Even after the addition of new spaces and of entirely defined sets, the depth remains unchanged, characterizing the system as having little depth and being permeable from the outside. This characteristic has been maintained from the second to the last enlargement.
Topologically, the house does not become more vertical (creating or intensifying tree-shaped structures), but instead more horizontal (increasing its base with several access points from the outside). The house was expanded and, in each enlargement, new entry points from the outside were created. The number of convex spaces directly linked to the outside leaps from 5 to 14; thus, the connectivity of the system has significantly increased, whereas the depth was kept stable, at six levels.
The access to the house is intensified by the outside, in contrast to a standard home in which the internal circulation flows give access to the different spaces, at the Isla Negra house, in most cases, it is done by directly accessing one space from another, while the house is still potentiated by the outside.
Another important aspect of the house is that after the modifications, the main spaces did not undergo changes in relation to their depth, a fact that indicates the option of making them accessible from the outside, keeping them shallow in relation to the system. Note that some spaces that were initially deeper became shallower with the following enlargements (the tower bedroom and the Martner room, for instance), while others were kept shallow during the house’s entire process of growth (main living room and tower).
Functionality and distribution
The last enlargement stage represented in Graph VII (Figure 6) shows that the Isla Negra house contains a spatial configuration composed of 12 rings. Two of them are especially significant, each separately engaging the first and second volumes.
The first, also the largest and deepest, contains 17 convex spaces and reaches to depth 6, includes the couple’s main bedroom (Nodes 24 and 25) as well social spaces such as the dining room (Node 6) and the living room (Node 8). This is not a novelty, however, among the houses of Neruda—the same effect can be seen in the house at Michoacán de Los Guindos.
The other important ring in the second volume is a path that encompasses the hallway, the libraries, and the horse room—Nodes 40, 41, 43, and 44, respectively—a kind of Neruda’s personal way, he could go from his bedroom to his more private space (his office) without going through the front of the house, through this second.
On the other hand, as was true with the first and second volumes, only two important spaces lie beyond the rings: the bar (Node 35) and Neruda’s office (Node 45). These represent probably the most vital of Neruda’s places. First, the bar present in all of Neruda’s houses—an area he shares with his intimate friends. The bar was a sacred space for Neruda; at the Isla Negra house bar, the names of his late friends were carved into the ceiling as homage to them. Second, the private office, his creative space, where he produces his poetry, which lies between the horse room and the snail room (Nodes 44 and 52) in the second volume.
In this way, while the house was extremely permeable as a result of its many rings, the poet also managed to segregate the most important spaces, such as those for creation, friendship, and happiness (the bar) and his sentimental spaces (the horse and snail rooms), which act almost as mediating or passage ways to the most sacred place of all: his office where he created his poetry.
Another important aspect of the Isla Negra house arises from its level of functionality. The house has only seven circulation spaces, including the stairs, of a total of 52 convex spaces; 45 spaces, therefore, were intended for activity. The level of functionality of the house is 0.86, which qualifies the system as highly functional.
According to Amorim (1999), a system oriented more toward transition implicates a proliferation of mediating spaces between places. This can be interpreted as a strategy to strengthen the categorical identities of users (residents, employees, and visitors) by increasing the syntactical distance between them. In this case, we find a system that invests little in circulation or connection spaces. On the contrary, Neruda opted in favor of a structure where permanent spaces or rooms are directly connected. In fact, in the case of his office, where it seemed he wanted to strengthen his condition of resident he used a different strategy: instead of using corridors, he build rooms where he placed his collections as anterooms protecting his most private, sacred space.
Integration and segregation
Finally, an analysis was made of the different spaces through the enlargement process. Figure 7(a) shows a comparison of the integration level of the seven main spaces that existed from the first to the last phase of the enlargement process. An interesting aspect revealed is that the integration level in the system tends to increase throughout the process in practically all the rooms; yet in the most important to Neruda, those related to his active social life, this improvement is significant (the exterior and dining room), while in those of lesser functional importance (the tower and living room), the integration improvement is less significant, and in those that were functionally replaced by new rooms (tower bedroom, tower office, and mezzanine), they remained unaltered or even slightly decreased their integration in the system.
On the other hand, Figure 7(b) shows all 17 spaces through the seven enlargement phases in a line chart according to their level of integration. This allowed us to identify three types of spaces.
Segregated spaces
Underlined in blue in Figure 7(b), include the mezzanine (“altillo”), the tower office and, to a lesser extent, the tower bedroom. Among these three, the tower bedroom is the space with the smallest integration rate during the entire expansion process (with an average of 0.592). What is interesting here is that although the house during the 30 years’ process of enlargement underwent substantive changes in size and shape, these rooms remained practically unaltered in their integration value, indicating that their configurational relation to the system as a whole did not change.
Medium integration
Underlined in green in Figure 7(b) include the main spaces of the house, Matilde/Neruda’s bedroom, the main working space (office), the main library and the bar, which has been widely described as the main socializing space used by the group closest to Neruda. This set of rooms probably grouped the most significant places of the house for the poet where his social, work, and sentimental life took place. It is important to underline the consistency of having these three aspects, which have been recognized widely as driving forces in Neruda’s life hosted on rooms with similar configurational characteristics (Matilde/Neruda’s main bedroom is as integrated as the bar, with a final integration rate of 0.937). Still from the fifth enlargement onwards, they show a tendency to increase their integration level.
The integrated core
Underlined in red in Figure 7(b) include the open space, the big dining room, and the tower. The tower and the large dining room are the internal spaces with the largest integration rates, having increased from 1.154 to 1.564 and 1.000 to 1.610, respectively. Along with what was, for Neruda, a striking aesthetic effect, the tower also fulfills the fundamental role of integrating spaces. On the other hand, the dining room is highlighted as the most integrated activity space in the system, a fact that conforms to the importance that this space played in Neruda’s social life. 17 Along with the exterior—the most integrated space of Isla Negra—this confirms the importance of these spaces for receiving visitors. Large parties, such as the 50th, 60th, and 65th birthdays of the poet, took place at a large open-air table in front of the dining room, complementing the living room and the bar, which were the most used spaces in the first volume. It further confirms that the first volume was a social space intended for more intensive use.
It is possible to see that, while the segregated group maintains a certain level of segregation, the medium spaces improve their integration while the integrated core, which corresponds to the most public spaces, improves its integration significantly (Figure 7—graphic a). Another interesting aspect revealed throughout this process is how the spaces change through time. Comparing the varying levels of integration in the initial rooms (first enlargement) and those present in the last enlargement, it is possible to see that the exterior tower, dining room, and living room improve their overall integration while the other three maintain the same level of segregation (Figure 7—graphic a).
Preliminary findings
At this stage, the analysis has documented at least five characteristics that are particular to Neruda’s organization of space: (a) shallowness, (b) permeability and visibility toward the ocean, (c) clearly defined levels of public and private places, (d) high functionality, and (e) three levels of integration.
In spite of the successive enlargements through 30 years of interventions, the syntax of the house, its deep structure, remained virtually unchanged: it is characterized by a highly permeable house from the outside, although significantly increasing the number of convex spaces. This is clearly visible beginning with Neruda’s intervention (after the second enlargement) until the last one.
On the other hand, according to the measures of functionality, the system is found to be extremely functional: one room leads to the other, with few corridors or transition spaces. Although the structure does not increase the intermediate spaces or depth to strengthen the identity categories of its users (residents, employees, and visitors), it creates the differentiation level and privacy requirements with another spatial strategy; by situating collection rooms previous to the most private areas.
Along with the many access points from outside (terrain), the syntactical analysis brings out the intrinsic relation that the house has with the surrounding territory. In this aspect, the arches are not only aesthetic elements, but they have a double function. First, they do not interrupt the direct relationship between the observer and the landscape. Without the arches, the house would be a barrier toward the ocean. Second, they provide a strong separation between the two volumes which in fact are representing the more public (lounge, dining room, etc.) and private domains (working space).
In this aspect, Neruda’s house draws our attention. The second volume (with the constructions between 1965 and 1973) is indeed marked by the working spaces (libraries, small living room, office and the spaces of the employees), rather than the social spaces. According to Sergio Soza, “the library was his private world, and few friends were received there” (Mayorga, 1996: 103). For Neruda, the spaces with his books, where he did his work, are more private. On the other hand, the large living and dining rooms, along with the bar, are more social and public spaces. These, together with the spaces in the bedrooms are in the first volume, and are syntactically accessible displaying the most public areas of the residence.
A syntactic analysis of the house clarifies another common reading in the studies on Neruda’s houses. The metaphor of the “house as a train” is commonly employed: comparing the successive additions to wagons; or the materials of the house to those of trains; or the arched ceilings of the rooms to the wagons. However, this metaphor makes more sense on account of the house’s configuration rather than to its form: the house is clearly accessed from outside along all its extension, similarly to the way all wagons of a train can be accessed from a station. The “station” is really the external space from which anyone can enter, have a seat, and behold a vista of the Pacific Ocean—the main view from the house.
The sea is the key element for Neruda in his relationship to this house and he dedicated several poems to it. In the words of Neruda himself, The Pacific Ocean overflowed from the map. There was not a place to put it. It was so huge, disordered and blue that it could not fit anywhere. For this reason they left it in front of my window. (2004: 82)
This is confirmed by the integration measure, which reveals that the exterior is the most integrated space of the house. Analysis shows that there are at least three types of spaces: (a) segregated spaces: including the mezzanine (altillo), the tower bedroom and the tower office, which keep their segregation unaltered through the 30 years of construction; (b) medium integrated spaces: the main functional spaces of the house, including Matilde/Neruda’s bedroom, the main working space (office), the main library and the bar, which tend to increase their integration level from the fifth enlargement phase onward; (c) the integrated core: the open space, the big dining room, and the tower, where the gregarious life of the poet flourished.
All these morphological characteristics of Neruda’s space confirm that the construction process is not random. The whole idea of the building exists from the beginning. Neruda’s original sketches (Figure 8(a)) express his intentions well: (a) to add a large living room to the small house; add one bedroom at the tower; make the tower a link between the volumes; (b) they define the list of needs: a dining room; library; space for employees; (c) they also add the most striking elements of the proposal: the arches, a transition space, and the lighthouse.
In Sergio Soza’s enlargements (seventh and eighth), the results of this can be seen as the building comes closer to Neruda’s sketch than the proposal by Rodríguez Arias (Figure 8(b)). The employee spaces are separated by a trapezoidal space, in conformity with Neruda’s sketch of 1945. A significant change is the inversion of the library’s position, which favors the view of the Pacific Ocean (not sketched by Neruda or by Arias). It is also the case of the dining room (Figure 8(a)), which was not built as proposed by Neruda but as a part of the trapezoidal space that remaining is defined as a small living.
The architect Sergio Soza clarified that the project was changed in the course of the work: “yes, it is different, as the project was a guide and was adapted to the terrain, including the rocks and plants” (Mayorga, 1996: 103). This confirms that the constructed result is a product of Neruda’s direct influence on its execution.
In short, the program of needs was kept, with slight changes in Sergio Soza’s second enlargement, marked by the inclusion of the horse room and office. The other spaces (library and employee spaces) remain, with notice that the library was constructed and separated by the living room with the fireplace and the Martner mural.
Therefore, it seems to us that the final result is a house that followed a plan sketched back in the 1940s, a formula that comes in opposition to the discourse that it is a house that has grown by the force of circumstances and without a previous plan. The house was entirely conceived for Neruda from the first enlargement, and its sketches confirm this. After all, the projects jointly undertaken with Rodríguez Arias and with Sergio Soza are, in brief, a realization of a desire expressed by Neruda in 1943 and 1945.
With Soza, Neruda resumed this same idea 20 years later. It was not a random act merely emerging from the need to store things. This is partially true, with relation to the second volume, in the creation of the horse room 18 and the inclusion of the second library. But in general terms, what happened was more a process of adapting the original idea.
The additions to the first volume (before the arches) can be attributed to the changes in his love life (such as his overwhelming passion for Matilde Urrutia and separation from Delia Del Carril). Matilde was not in Neruda’s plans in 1945, but she was after 1949, when they first met. According to Hermann Loyola (Neruda, 2004: 150), with the poem “love for this book” Neruda not only invested in Matilde as queen of the house—as was the maximum deference to a female figure in his poetry—but he also connected her to the Isla Negra house and “his” Pacific Ocean. Therefore, Neruda did this not only in his literature but also in his physical space. The changes made between 1956 and 1966 are extremely important in the building process of Isla Negra. Maybe this was the part that Neruda had not yet planned in the early 1940s.
This view is confirmed by a syntax analysis of the house. Even with the adaptations, the house did follow its initial proposals and the graphs reveal that the house does, indeed, have a morphological standard. Neruda did not compromise this standard with the adaptations he needed to make to the original plan. He follows the project—his project. His concept of Isla Negra is that of an open home, permeable, and shallow. He did not build the house; he designed it. Thus, he is the architect of Isla Negra.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the journalist Eva R. Hershaw for reviewing English. A special thanks to Pablo Neruda Foundation for giving free access to its archives; this study would not have been possible without this access and full support to our research.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CEDEUS) under the research grant CONICYT/FONDAP 15110020.