Mathias Klotz (Viña del Mar, Chile, 1965) is the most international figure among the new generation of Chilean architects. His work has been published in specialised magazines the world over, especially since receiving the 2001 Borromini Prize for the best architect under forty for his well-known Altamira School in Santiago de Chile. Despite working in and from the peripheral situation of Chile, from a position that for the Western world is almost exotic, his oeuvre alludes more to the second generation of Modern Movement architects, particularly the work of Marcel Breuer in the USA, than to the historicist sentimentality and formal localism of his own country, this meaning that his buildings can be bracketed within the best of the world's contemporary architectural output. This issue contains two introductory texts by Stan Allen and Horacio Torrent which reflect on Mathias Klotz's architecture within the national and international architectural context, and ends with a short consideration of working conditions and design methods by the architect himself called "About My Work", plus an interview undertaken especially for this number by Hernán Garfias.
