This is the sixth post in our Urban and Environmental Dialogues series, published in collaboration with The Metropole.
Between 1920 and 1930, the Chilean Electric Company Limited, Santiago Municipality, and the Chilean government built 100 electric substations to transmit and distribute electrical power throughout Chile’s capital city. The project was ambitious, especially considering Santiago’s small urban area, just 3,000 hectares with 507,296 residents by 1920.1 The company located the first substation on San Cristobal Hill, a major landmark, and, according to the company’s photo archive, plans called for additional substations on the city’s periphery. Containing almost 20,000 photographs, the archive offers valuable insights into substations on the outskirts, informal housing, and how landscapes changed after the introduction of electric infrastructure.2
“Building on these research areas and a review of the visual archive of the Chilean Electric Company Limited, I examine substations beyond the notions of progress and modernization often associated with electricity.”
Recently, research on Latin American urban history and technology has explored how private and state-owned companies built technical infrastructure, creating new techno-electric spaces and environmental landscapes in the region’s capitals.3 Building on these research areas and a review of the visual archive of the Chilean Electric Company Limited, I examine substations beyond the notions of progress and modernization often associated with electricity. Shifting focus from the city center to informal settlements on the outskirts, I analyze changes before and after the construction of substations, exploring how urban and environmental landscapes were reshaped by their presence. This approach also highlights urban inequality in access to electricity, as residents near electrical installations gained access later, while the city center’s elite enjoyed street lighting and trams.
Since the late nineteenth century, the expansion of electricity in Santiago has been dominated by foreign private companies. The Chilean Electric Tramway & Light Co., a firm with British capital and German decision-makers, oversaw the growth of the tramway and electricity networks. After 1921, the company merged with the National Electric Power Company, founded by Chilean investors involved in hydroelectric projects, to form the Chilean Electric Company Limited.4 By the time construction of substations began in 1920, the Chilean Electric Company Limited had nearly twenty years of experience in the city’s electrical development. However, the country’s first electricity regulation law did not take effect until 1925; as a result, the tram, public lighting, and substations were developed during a period of lax regulation, with private and foreign companies shouldering most of the investments and the government and municipalities playing a secondary role.5 A significant urban and environmental impact of this private investment was that the Chilean Electric Company Limited focused on developing trams and street lighting in the city center, while on the outskirts, it prioritized substations.
For example, out of the 50 albums in the company archive, at least 30 contain information on substations on the outskirts, mainly in the southern part of Santiago. As the company expanded into manufacturing, advertising services for other firms, and trams, its visual archive also grew. The archive includes images of workers and their political and social activities, trams and their equipment, hydroelectric dams in the Central Valley, and advertisements promoting the company’s vision of progress and modernization through electrical infrastructure.6 However, the company presented these visions differently depending on whether they depicted San Cristobal Hill or the substations located outside the urban area.
For instance, first substation, completed in 1923, demonstrates how the company, the municipality, and the Chilean government showcased the infrastructure’s visibility and the symbolism of electrical technology (Fig. 1). These actors linked the ideals of beauty and hygiene to urban improvements, reflected in the decision to build on one of the city’s highest peaks and in the promotion of other electric technologies, such as trams. After 1920, alongside this substation, the municipality promoted the creation of a public park, a funicular railway, and a zoo, thereby enhancing the hill’s strategic position.7
However, the San Cristóbal substation was an exception compared to most substations in its location and the scale of the infrastructure shown in the photographs. Since most substations in the archive were on the outskirts, they were connected to the city’s 1920s urban environment, characterized by population growth and informal housing development. Highlighting this connection helps understand the role of these substations in shaping urban expansion and new environmental technical landscapes.
There was an explosion of informal settlements on Santiago’s outskirts during this time as people arrived in the city from the rural South and northern Chile. Following the discovery of synthetic nitrate in Germany, the economy’s shift to other mining industries in northern Chile, the end of World War I, and the economic impacts of the Great Depression led people to move to Santiago. By the end of 1920, the census estimated Santiago’s population had nearly doubled to 507,296 from 256,403 at the end of the nineteenth century. The most impoverished of Santiago’s new residents built informal houses on the periphery, leading to the rise of informal houses -most well known in Latin America as conventillos in Spanish-and several public health issues related to the lack of sewage and drinking water in informal neighborhoods.9
The visual archive shows that the electric company took numerous photographs documenting housing conditions. For example, in the following image of Substation 57’s site in southern Santiago, taken in 1922, we can appreciate the landscape before and after the infrastructure’s construction. The image shows a relatively rural setting, with what appears to be a water canal on our right and the remains of an informal house on our left (Fig. 2).
Less than ten years later, in 1931, the company took numerous pictures of the same site. Figure 3 shows a small building that contrasts sharply with the 1922 photograph (Fig. 3). The previous photo showed an empty area, just beginning to be delimited as a future electrical substation. Later, it is shown, surrounded by techno-electric elements that alter the landscape’s configuration.
In the next photo, we can immerse ourselves in the private space of an informal housing area before the construction of substations began (Fig. 4). The image shows the location of Substation 48 in the eastern part of the city, now the Providencia commune, in September 1922. It depicts a woman standing alongside five children of different ages, some of whom are barefoot. It also shows what appears to be the yard of a house made of adobe or other light materials, with a mud floor and a small water line that could indicate an informal sewer system. The woman is carrying a bucket, suggesting they had access to an informal spring or stream
Just a few months later, in 1923, the company took a photo in the same location (Fig. 5). The informal house and people are no longer visible in the panoramic shot, which was taken from a distance rather than from inside the space. On the right side of the photograph, there is a series of wooden electric light poles. Although this detail may seem minor, it contrasts with the city center, where the company, the municipality, and the local elite—primarily for urban aesthetic reasons—preferred to install steel electrical poles, resulting in noticeably different street-lighting materials between the center and the outskirts. Material choices also reflected how private companies capitalized on the elite to promote street lighting powered by electricity as a hygienic, white, and harmless clean energy through advertising.13
Meanwhile, on the outskirts, the process was much slower because other technologies, such as kerosene and gas, coexisted, delaying the adoption of electricity. Families also lacked the same purchasing power as the elite, who could afford it in their private spaces.14 This process can also be seen in transportation. On the left side of the image, there is a packhorse, a mode of transportation that, on the outskirts of Santiago, coexisted with trams or was even the only way to transport and buy agricultural products like fruits and vegetables. Packhorses continued to be used for farming transport on the outskirts even after the company introduced trams downtown.15
Similar to other Latin American capital cities in the early twentieth century, housing problems in Santiago’s outskirts were connected to access to new urban services, including electricity. While the local elite, the government, and the company focused on expanding electricity in the city center through trams and street lighting, expansion into the outskirts was much slower but still occurred via substations. In this context, studying these infrastructures is especially important for understanding how electrical technologies influence urban growth in Santiago’s periphery, reveal housing issues, and highlight the social inequalities linked to this energy.
“Analyzing the Chilean Electric Company’s records … prompts us to look beyond ideas of progress and modernization associated with electricity by examining other electrical infrastructures and how people outside the city center interact with them.”
Furthermore, analyzing the Chilean Electric Company’s records also prompts us to look beyond ideas of progress and modernization associated with electricity by examining other electrical infrastructures and how people outside the city center interact with them. Methodologically, it encourages incorporating visual archival resources into discussions about urban, environmental, and Chilean and Latin American history, which can shed light on electrical development in the early twentieth century. Ultimately, this helps us understand how and who shaped Latin American landscapes and how various actors, beyond decision-makers, can be included in these studies.
The author would like to thank the National Digital Library of Chile and ENEL for allowing the use of images from the ENEL Historical Archive, specifically for this blog.
Bibliography
Primary Source
National Digital Library of Chile, https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/629/w3-propertyvalue-1079533.html, accessed November 30, 2025.
Secondary Bibliography
Booth Rodrigo, Higiene pública y movilidad urbana en el Santiago de 1900. ARQ, 85, 2013, pp. 52-61. Link: https://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0717-69962013000300009&script=sci_abstract
Castillo Simón and Vila Waldo, Periferia. Poblaciones y desarrollo urbano en Santiago de Chile, 1920-1940. Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Alberto Hurtado, 2022. Link: https://ediciones.uahurtado.cl/producto/periferia/
Chastain Andra, Chile Underground: The Santiago Metro and the Struggle for a Rational City, Yale University Press, 2024. Link: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300253559/chile-underground/
Errázuriz Tomás, La experiencia del tránsito. Motorización y vida cotidiana en el Santiago metropolitano, 1900-1931. Doctoral Dissertation in Architecture and Urban Studies, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2012, pp. 44-45.
Montaño Diana J., Electrifying Mexico Technology and the Transformation of a Modern City, University of Texas Press, 2021. Link: https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477328255/
Prudant Elisabet, “Imágenes de la familia tranviaria. Fotografía, política de archivo y racionalización del mundo del trabajo en la Compañía Chilena de Electricidad, 1920-1930”, Claves. Revista de Historia, Vol. 5, N° 8 Montevideo, January-June 2019, pp. 67–94. Link: https://ojs.fhce.edu.uy/index.php/claves/article/view/184/199
Zacarías Yohad, “The Electric Fluid and the Search for Materiality: Visions of Energy and Technology in the Advertising of the First Electric Lights. Santiago, Chile. 1900-1920”. Diseña, (18), 2021, Article 3, pp. 1-18 https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.18.Article.3
_, “Los inicios del alumbrado eléctrico en Santiago de Chile. Visiones Municipales, centralidad y tecnología en el espacio urbano en el cambio de siglo,” Revista Historia y Patrimonio 2 (2023), pp. 1-25. Link: https://doi.org/10.5354/2810-6245.2023.70625
Notes
1 Tomás Errázuriz, La experiencia del tránsito. Motorización y vida cotidiana en el Santiago metropolitano, 1900-1931. Doctoral Dissertation in Architecture and Urban Studies, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2012, pp. 44-45.
2 The company’s visual archive has been digitized since 2018. More information at National Digital Library of Chile, https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/629/w3-propertyvalue-1079533.html, accessed November 30, 2025.
3 Andra Chastain, Chile Underground: The Santiago Metro and the Struggle for a Rational City, Yale University Press, 2024; Simón Castillo and Waldo Vila, Periferia. Poblaciones y desarrollo urbano en Santiago de Chile, 1920-1940.Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Alberto Hurtado, 2022; Diana J. Montaño, Electrifying Mexico Technology and the Transformation of a Modern City, University of Texas Press, 2021.
4 Elisabet Prudant, Imágenes de la familia tranviaria. Fotografía, política de archivo y racionalización del mundo del trabajo en la Compañía Chilena de Electricidad, 1920-1930, Claves. Revista de Historia, Vol. 5, N° 8 Montevideo, enero – junio 2019, pp. 73.
5 Yohad Zacarías, “Los inicios del alumbrado eléctrico en Santiago de Chile. Visiones Municipales, centralidad y tecnología en el espacio urbano en el cambio de siglo,” Revista Historia y Patrimonio 2 (2023), pp. 1-25. [1] Prudant, op. Cit.
6 Prudant, op. Cit.
7 More information at https://lugaresdeciencia.cl/2021/10/13/subestacion-electrica-san-cristobal-1923/, accessed November 30, 2025.
8 Album 12, “Generators and electrical substations,” available at the National Digital Library of Chile https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/629/w3-article-554216.html, accessed November 30, 2025.
9 Errázuriz, op. Cit.
10 Album 2, “Electric lighting, transportation, and Chilectra workers,” Available at the National Digital Library of Chile https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/629/w3-article-554194.html, accessed November 30, 2025.
11 Album 36, “Electrical substations and plants in Santiago,” available at the National Digital Library of Chile https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/629/w3-article-554168.html, accessed November 30, 2025.
12 Album 2, “Electric lighting, transportation, and Chilectra workers,” Available at the National Digital Library of Chile https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/629/w3-article-554194.html, accessed November 30, 2025.
13 Yohad Zacarías, “The Electric Fluid and the Search for Materiality: Visions of Energy and Technology in the Advertising of the First Electric Lights. Santiago, Chile. 1900-1920”. Diseña, (18), 2021, Article 3, pp. 1-18.
14 Zacarías, “Los inicios del alumbrado eléctrico en Santiago de Chile,” op. Cit.
15 Rodrigo Booth, Higiene pública y movilidad urbana en el Santiago de 1900. ARQ, 85, 2013, pp. 52-61.
16 Album 12, “Generators and electrical substations,” available at the National Digital Library of Chile https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/629/w3-article-554216.html, accessed November 30, 2025.
Yohad Zacarias S.
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