Fundición Lambert, Industrial heritage site in La Serena, Chile.
Fundición Lambert consists of remaining structures from a 19th-century copper processing facility positioned near La Serena's city center. The preserved buildings show the installations where ore was melted, processed, and refined into copper products.
Charles Lambert founded this copper foundry in 1840 and introduced reverberatory furnaces that transformed Chilean mining. The facility was among the first of its kind in South America and drove modernization of the regional industry.
The foundry served as a major employer in La Serena and shaped daily life for many families in the city. People came here to work, and the site represented economic hope for the entire region.
The site is walkable from La Serena's downtown and offers insight into early industrial operations. Visitors should check ahead as accessibility may vary depending on ongoing restoration work.
The foundry housed Chile's first sulfuric acid plant and was one of the first places where smelting and metal processing happened together. Few realize these technologies were imported directly from Europe and introduced entirely new working methods here.
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