The so-called “Magical Flowers” are twelve sculptures located in the city of La Serena, the work of the French artist Federica Matta. The pieces, made with synthetic resin and covered in bright colors, symbolize totemic flowers of gigantic dimensions and were installed to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Gabriela Mistral’s receipt of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Although it was installed in the city in May 2005, the inauguration of the so-called Magic Flowers Path was in 2006.
The layout of the current city was conceived and developed as part of the so-called Serena Plan, which included the entire edge of the Coquimbo Bay and was executed between 1946 and 1952 during the presidential period of Gabriel González Videla under the direction of the architects urban planner Guillermo Ulriksen, and landscape designer Oscar Prager. The city has received special recognition: the Historic Center or Foundational Center of the city was declared a Typical Urban Zone by the Council of National Monuments in 1989.
This area includes aristocratic mansions from the 19th and early 20th centuries, and numerous neocolonial and eclectic style buildings built as part of the 1952 Plan. Regarding the landscape, the architects conceived a system of open spaces, with the creation of parks, squares, green areas and gardens, as an amphitheater forming four successive terraces that descend towards the sea, and an experimental afforestation plan to contain the advances of the desert with species suitable for the difficult conditions of soil salinity and scarcity. of irrigation water. For this, subtropical flora with filigree pattern leaves was used, taking advantage of the morning mists for irrigation, achieving optimal results with acacia visco and jacaranda.
In fact, the city of La Serena is located in the Coquimbo region, and on the limits of the desert in one of the so-called Transversal Valleys, and has a climate with little rainfall where its greatest characteristic is abundant cloudiness, humidity and moderate temperatures, with mild winters and warm summers. In the so-called coastal trough, the atmospheric pressure is relatively lower than in the surrounding area, a phenomenon that manifests itself with the generation of clouds near the ground called stratus, with frequent morning fogs and drizzles.
The city has a vibrant urban tapestry interwoven with exotic and native flower species that already contribute to the promotion of a softer environment and a visually colorful landscape that enhances the heart of the city. Among the first, the Hibiscus stands out for its imposing size, a herbaceous shrub and small tree, and the so-called Corona del Inca, with showy bell-shaped flowers with five large petals (more than 15 cm in diameter), and Varied colors depending on the species, which usually emerge in clusters, and among the native ones the Peumo and the Quillay.
Also common in gardens are Cactaceae, better known as cacti, a family of plants native to America that usually have thorns, and the so-called succulents – such as the Immortelle or the Doquilla – similar to cacti, but with thick leaves to accumulate moisture. . The permanent flower plants in public spaces are maintained for much of the year thanks to the humidity of the climate, as well as with irrigation by the municipality, manual with hoses in green areas and pots with flowers, and with water cisterns. extracted from drains during the night on planters and street trees.
Although the city does not seem to be the most ideal place for biodiversity, a series of animal species have approached it, forming a group clearly dominated by birds and birds, which have adapted to the presence of humans, which adorn the newspaper. live with their songs and flights consolidating important populations in the urban landscape. Thus, for example, you can see the latter with the naked eye wandering between soft areas and urban gardens, such as La Tenca and Chincol – and observing more closely Zorzales, Cachuditos or Chercanes -, or hear the courtship song of the so-called Torcaza that have colonized the city with unsuspected success, among other birds.
As part of this diverse landscape, the path of the Magic Flowers moves through the terraces in a triadric game of sound, form and color, performing acupuncture on the soft urban tissues and sensitively activating its public spaces, linking traditional architecture with its presence. the daily life of the inhabitants in the city.
Its tour begins in Plaza Tenri, on the third terrace, next to the Gabriela Mistral School where the poetess taught and young students meet today; going down to the second terrace along the pedestrian promenade of Cordobés Street arriving at the Cathedral, a place of commercial and recreational activity; in the squares of Santo Domingo and de Armas, meeting places and civic-religious centrality; and ending next to Pedro Pablo Muñoz Avenue at the top of Pedro de Valdivia Park, a family recreation place on the second terrace.
The structure of the sculptural pieces consists of a vertical metal profile, embedded in the ground and crossed – as if it were a skewer – by two or three elongated conical-spherical shapes separated by small spheres, all of them in bright blue, red, and yellow colors. , green and orange, crowned by cheerful golden and stellar motifs that serve as guiding signs on the route, silhouetted against the achromatic background of the buildings in the city center.
With the sculpture trail, the community also wanted to celebrate the great poet, inaugurating a new way of incorporating contemporary art into the landscape and public space, respecting the typical style of the historic center of the city. Although this urban landscape is part of a privileged tourist infrastructure, the state in which the city is today is one of considerable abandonment and deterioration, making it urgent to have a recovery plan, assuming the tourist vocation of its environment and the protection of its heritage and cultural values. In particular the repair and beautification of its public spaces and these notable sculptures, ready to celebrate next year 2025 the 80 years of Gabriela Mistral’s Nobel Prize and the 20 years of the tribute expressed through the work of Federica Matta.