Saturday, April 15th to Thursday, April 20th

After my lovely vacation from vacation in Montreal, I spent some time in Toronto and Burlington seeing my family and friends. We had a lovely time at Snakes & Lattes [*] and FreePlay [†] during a night on the town with everyone.

But it was back to Santiago for me, and back to these beautiful sunsets.

Friday, April 21st

Given that I live so close to the Plaza de Armas [‡] in Santiago, the town square, it's surprising that it took me so long to visit the National History Museum of Chile [§]. Yes, not that Natural History Museum, the National History Museum.

The museum is located in the old Cabildo of Santiago, the seat of the municipal government. So the building is old and regal, with a courtyard inside, and old, wooden floors that creak incessantly. The main floor was hosting a temporary exhibition about the history of fashion in Chile [¶]. This had a pretty interesting tie-in to the Parall(elles) exhibit in Montreal. While that one was about women in design, the way that women broke into the design world centuries ago was through textile work and fashion. I didn't highlight that part of the exhibit in my Montreal post, but the similarities are interesting.

This uniform caught my eye amongst all the others. It is so blue and poppin', I can't imagine being on a flight and seeing the crew in this outfit. My question was, how does this relate to Chile, after some research, it seems that Braniff was an American company. Well, with the magic of DeepL, I can quickly translate the accompanying quote.

There were eight Chilean women and I, the only man, who were trained and selected to fly international air routes with Braniff International. This North American airline was a pioneer in safety, service and corporate image, but above all for its innovative aesthetics. The women wore colourful uniforms by famed Italian designer Emilio Pucci, Alexander Girard pigeon badges were worn, and the D-C8 aircraft were painted by artist Alexander Calder. It was like living a fairy tale.

—Hugo Donoso, former Manager at Braniff International

On the upper floor of the museum, we get to the meat of things. A tour through the timeline of Chile and the city of Santiago. Let me tell you, I saw a ton of portraits. This isn't unique to Chilean museums either, some great portraitists were roaming around South America in the early 1800s, as evidenced by what I saw in museums in Argentina and Uruguay on my last trip. And, as usual, I am looking for something that makes me laugh in the museum, and today we have this man's hat.

I also appreciated the aesthetic of these pseudo-propaganda posters from the 1900s. There are some Soviet/socialist vibes from some of the posters, such as the arms with hammers, and the three hands levering that house out of the ground.

After a jaunt through the early years of the country, we get to something a bit more contemporary. The 1973 coup d'état against President Allende that brought Pinochet to power. Among other things, the museum has the front page of various newspapers around the world displayed with news about the coup. It is an interesting exercise for the reader to identify the political spin of certain newspapers by how they portray what happened. There are some headlines in English and French, so no one should feel left out. I also tried my best to make the fine print more readable, but it may still be hard to read anything but the headlines.

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[*]	Snakes & Lattes College, 489 College St, Toronto, ON, Canada

[†]	FreePlay Toronto, 300 College St, Toronto, ON, Canada

[‡]	Plaza de Armas de Santiago, Pl. de Armas, Santiago, Región Metropolitana, Chile

[§]	National History Museum of Chile, Pl. de Armas 951, Santiago, Región Metropolitana, Chile

[¶]	For more information about the exhibit, see this page, (or the archived copy)

[TS]	This photo was taken by and is © Tyler Sherritt.