Central clasificadora de Correos de Chile, Postal sorting facility in Estación Central, Chile
The Central clasificadora de Correos de Chile is a six-story building on Exposición Street in Estación Central, Santiago, designed by Boris Guiñeman in 1970 and inaugurated in 1974. It is a single rectangular volume in fair-faced concrete, with ten interior pillars leaving the floor plates free of partitions.
The project was first announced in 1965 as part of the modernization of the postal service. The land, owned by the State Railway Company, passed to the postal service under Law 17272 of 31 December 1969. Construction began on 17 May 1971 to a design by Boris Guiñeman, commissioned by the Ministry of Public Works, and the building opened in 1974. In 2020 Correos de Chile put it up for sale, and in December 2022 EFE launched an architecture competition to convert it into its corporate headquarters.
The building's name, Central clasificadora de Correos de Chile, refers to its role as the national postal service's sorting centre, a function it held from its 1974 inauguration until Correos de Chile put it up for sale in 2020. Its raw concrete finish and single rectangular volume mark it as a work of Chilean modern architecture tied to the state modernisation plans of the 1960s and 1970s.
The building stands on Exposición Street beside the Estación Central railway station, in the Estación Central district. It is a closed structure awaiting conversion into the corporate headquarters of the state railway company EFE, so it cannot be visited inside; the concrete volume and its street frontage can be seen from the public road.
In 2022, the State Railway Company launched an architectural competition to redesign the former postal center as their new corporate headquarters. This gave the long-dormant building an unexpected second purpose after its postal operations had moved away.
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