The Montalván Hacienda: Traditional Construction and Thermal Strategies in Cañete, Peru (18th-19th centuries)

The coast of Peru, a naturally arid and narrow territory between the Pacific Ocean and the Central Andes, has historically been an area of ​​culture formation that we can trace through its remnants from the most remote pre-Columbian past to the miscegenation of the centuries of the Spanish viceroyalty. and of the present. Part of this multicolored mosaic was expressed, of course, through territorial constructive interventions - for example important pre-Hispanic irrigation works - and architectural interventions, of which this research shows a specific moment: that of the 18th and 19th centuries, the heyday of the regional coastal area of ​​Cañete, south of the capital Lima, with sugar and wine estates. Once numerous, today a few have been preserved in their more or less original version, although deteriorated. Others have disappeared or have been replaced by other types of structures. The area is so particular in its geographical characteristics - desertic, sandy and hot, prone to strong earthquakes - that everything that has resisted the passage of time and human abandonment has been what most clearly manifested the virtues of local vernacular construction, its materials and techniques. This paper focuses on a specific example of a hacienda house - studied by the authors in depth in recent years - and within the case, on aspects such as flexible and thermally efficient roofs and walls, which have demonstrated the relevance of a traditional historical architecture that in turn has determined the landscape.