Arica House of Culture, Cultural center in Arica, Chile

The Arica House of Culture, the former Arica Custom House, is a neoclassical building with a roughly rectangular plan. Its exterior walls are made of bricks brought from France, reinforced with ashlar columns. A two-story central section is flanked by one-story wings, and both the roof structure and the interior columns are metal.

The structure was designed by Gustave Eiffel's company between 1871 and 1874 to replace the previous customs building destroyed in the 1868 earthquake. Its construction marked the rebuilding of Arica's administrative infrastructure after this natural disaster.

Since 1991 the former custom house has served as Arica's Casa de la Cultura, a municipal cultural centre. Its name changed with its function: the building is still known as the Antigua Aduana, the old customs house, recalling the customs work carried out here until 1977. Visitors can look for the metal interior columns and roof structure supplied by Gustave Eiffel's Paris firm.

The 2020 works covered structural intervention, facade and perimeter-wall repairs and the metal roof structure, not a full roof reconstruction. The building stands in Arica, Chile, and has housed the city's culture centre since 1991. Check locally for current visiting conditions and opening arrangements.

The building was assembled from prefabricated components shipped from Paris and remarkably survived the 1877 tsunami without damage. This structure continued operating as a customs facility for more than a century, serving the same function until 1977.