Though often shrouded in fog, Lima is one of the world’s driest cities, and in the face of chronic drought, people have been building huge structures here for thousands of years. Pre-Incan ruins abound, and 16th-century Spanish colonial architecture mingles with everything built before or since. Today the architecture and design scenes are especially vibrant. Thanks to rich veins of minerals in the Andes, Peru’s economy has been booming
for the past six years on exports of copper, zinc, and gold to Asia and North America. Politics have calmed since a leftist insurgency group that torched power lines and bombed the city was defeated a decade ago. A new wealth and stability have combined to give a generation of young Peruvians a chance to focus on building—–be it on the edges of the city’s cliffs or the rocky desert beaches of the Pacific.

We get a guided tour of this city marked as much by its arid climate as its seismic volatility from Jordi Puig, an architect from a Catalan family who grew up in Lima. Puig has designed several prize-winning projects across the city, including a number of restaurants. He also co-hosts a TV show that keeps its eye on Peru’s design scene by interviewing architects in their homes.

I’m Peruvian, so I grew up with earthquakes. At the time I didn’t know how powerful this last one was because the epicenter was south of here, where hundreds of people in towns along the coast died. Whenever I feel any slight movements, I always find myself remembering quakes or thinking about new ones.

I often find myself arguing with structural engineers who want to change my designs or put big columns in the middle of my buildings for safety reasons. But even though we are a country of earthquakes, people in poor areas don’t have the resources to build in responsible ways, making whole districts of the city susceptible to sudden demolition. It’s a constant struggle with our environment.

The huacas [ceremonial structures of brick often built on hills] were normally where the dead were buried. Say, one or two centuries ago, the Spanish built houses on top of the huacas, so in a way the newcomers chose to live on top of cemeteries. I think Peru is a place where people live between the past and the present. This ideology of being in the past and in the present affects the city by making it a very eclectic mélange of times.

Nowadays people might be afraid to live next to a cemetery but not next to huacas because they are seen as archaeology, even though obviously there are dead bodies in them. The ruins have taken on an artistic quality, more as objects instead of just being cemeteries.

I grew up very aware of the presence of ancient indigenous cultures in my daily life, and aesthetically those cultures were incredibly sophisticated. Sadly, a lot of that was lost because of the Spanish conquest, but jewelry, ceramics, and textiles survived. What distinguishes Peru today is still, I think, the quality of the handicraft skills.

Lima for me has never been downtown, where the Spanish put their first plaza, built their first churches, and ran their empire in the Americas. Lima for me has always been Miraflores and San Isidro. They are both to the south of downtown, near the ocean, and are filled with parks. Parque Redondo is a hidden jewel in San Isidro, an area with a lot of early examples of modern architecture, but which tends to have a bit more of a neocolonial feel to it because one aristocratic family owned the whole area.

Miraflores has always been more relaxed and less stuffy, because it started out as a beach resort. So the modern architecture is more vibrant. Further is Barranco, which is bohemian. Chorrillos, at the southern part of the bay, is a community of fishermen. But Miraflores is the best district, because everything is close by and you can walk, which for me is very important.

There certainly is a Lima aesthetic, and it all responds to the incredible dryness. Because it’s so dry here, the houses necessarily respond to the environment; next to totally bald hills in the desert, architects have to figure out how to build a contemporary house that still blends into the site. Because it’s so dry and [doesn’t] have much vegetation, you’re drawing on a blank canvas.

More broadly, along Peru’s coast and across Lima, you can’t escape the massive pre-Incan structures. In terms of how they used spaces and their materials, the pre- Incans were definitely minimalists. They too built in a desert landscape, so that is clearly a reference, using the soil for adobe bricks. It’s amazing how dry it is, and yet if you irrigate, the brown turns to green.

Many designers of my generation fled Peru during the political chaos of the 1980s, and, since coming home, they have developed a greater appreciation for their own culture. So they are increasingly trying to address the indigenous past by mixing traditional materials with contemporary designs. People are becoming increasingly proud of what’s theirs; everybody is into Peruvian cuisine.

Although pre-Incan or Incan buildings could be used as references, Peru has still not managed to create a national architecture, like in Mexico, where the indigenous past was reinterpreted by a school of architects led by the likes of Luis Barragán.

There’s a small group of architects who are very sophisticated with very contemporary, linear concepts, but in terms of a mass architecture or one that’s accessible for everybody, we still have a ways to go. There are exceptions, of course. In Lima, Emilio Soyer does contemporary architecture based on pre-Incan adobe. It’s fantastic. Overall, things are changing for the better in Lima, because we are on the path to do what Mexico has done and embrace our past.