Piramide del sol

Pyramid of the Sun sees Sebastián Thomas delve into the utopian vision of an architect who, in the late 1970s, set out to replicate the ancient Pyramid of the Sun of Teotihuacán in the heart of Santiago de Chile, transforming it into a visionary shopping center.

Built in 1979, this postmodern building—one of the so-called caracoles comerciales—stood for decades as a bold architectural landmark. Today, it endures amid the rise of new retail models and an increasingly homogenized city that threatens to erase its singular character.

Between 2022 and 2023, Thomas walked its spiral corridors to portray the shopkeepers and workers who still inhabit the building. Photographed in black and white using medium-format analog film, the structure emerges as a stage where architecture, memory, and everyday life intertwine. Pyramid of the Sun is a tribute to a radical architectural experiment and to those who continue to keep it standing.