Santiago Turn a Busy City Street Into a Colorful Work of Urban Art

Busy City Street in Santiago Is Turned Into a Colorful Pedestrian Promenade

By Emma Taggart on April 9, 2018

The city of Santiago, Chile has recently turned one of its most busiest streets into colorful urban art with a project titled Paseo Bandera. Opened on December 21, 2017 and designed by Chilean visual artist Dasic Fernández, the entire 35,500-square-foot floor mural sprawls across almost four blocks and three sections. Located next to the city’s government palace and main square, Bandera Street had been closed to traffic while the Santiago Metro was under construction. The temporary pedestrian promenade installation was a hit with both the locals and the city Mayor—so much so, they’re now hoping to keep it.

With thousands of people walking through Paseo Bandera each day, the entire $550,000 project was funded by sponsoring brands who, in return, had their logos featured within the artwork. Complemented by green spaces, as well as bike racks and seating areas, the artwork was painted directly onto the asphalt and took 30 days to complete. Featuring a 400-yard-long stretch of rainbow-colored swirls and three-dimensional illusions, each section represents a piece of Chilean history, their diverse culture, and colorful future. “We made a team of twenty local and Latin American muralists, who painted each block in eight or ten hours. There was a whole coordination. It was a true visual choreography,” Fernández proudly explains.

However, the future of the project is uncertain, with its fate in the hands of the Ministry of Transport. At the end of 2018 a decision will be made whether to keep the space for art-loving pedestrians or reopen the Paseo to cars and public transport. Though it still remains unclear, the mayor of Santiago, Felipe Alessandri, is advocating for Paseo Bandera to stay open, telling a local newspaper, “If it was only on me, it would stay forever.”