Valdivia
— — the city the rivers met to make.
Not only on a wall.
“A river city on the Pacific coast of southern Chile, set where the Calle-Calle, Cau-Cau and Valdivia rivers meet before reaching the sea. The Spanish founded it in 1552, then German colonists resettled the area from the 1850s. The old houses on Isla Teja still show it. The 1960 earthquake, the largest ever recorded, sank parts of the coast nearby. The fish market on Avenida Prat draws sea lions every morning.
Valdivia, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Valdivia is the capital of the Los Ríos region in southern Chile, about 850 kilometres south of Santiago and roughly 15 kilometres inland from the Pacific. The city sits at the confluence of the Calle-Calle, Cau-Cau and Valdivia rivers, on a low alluvial plain surrounded by temperate rainforest. Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia founded the settlement in 1552, and German immigrants arrived in significant numbers from 1850, invited by the Chilean state to colonise the southern provinces. Population today is around 175,000.
Three rivers shape Valdivia. The Calle-Calle runs in from the east, joins the Cau-Cau, and becomes the Valdivia river before reaching the Pacific at Corral Bay. Boats still leave the central pier for the seventeenth-century Spanish forts at Niebla and Corral, about half an hour downstream. The fish market on Avenida Prat is a daily institution, and sea lions wait at the pilings each morning for offcuts. The river is tidal, slow, and unusually dark for a coastal river. Tannins from the forest.
The 1960 Valdivia earthquake, measured at magnitude 9.5, remains the strongest ever recorded by instruments. It struck on 22 May at 3:11 p.m. local time, dropped sections of the coast by up to two metres, and reshaped the river mouth. The city rebuilt slowly. Today the Universidad Austral, founded in 1954, anchors the academic and cultural life of the south. Semana Valdiviana, held in February each year, ends with the Noche Valdiviana river parade of lit boats.