The term “Valparaíso School” is often applied to the school of architecture, design, and arts of the Catholic University of Valparaíso, Chile, in specific relation to a novel academic approach initiated in 1952 and established in 1967 through an academic reform. The shift in teaching strategies implied the rejection of a Beaux-Arts-inspired syllabus in favor of a particularly local approach that involved new interests, processes, and products, in part inspired by aspects of imported heroic Modernism. The main promoters of this change were the architect Alberto Cruz and the poet Godofredo Iommi.

Alberto Cruz was born in 1917. He studied architecture at the Catholic University in Santiago from 1934. After graduating, he became a teacher there and participated in movements to change the school’s syllabus in 1949. In 1975 he received the National Architecture Award from the Chilean Architects’ Association. Godofredo Iommi, from Argentina, was born in 1917 and studied Economics for two years in Buenos Aires before leaving his studies uncompleted. Instead, he began a poetic practice, inspired by the modern Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro.