Painted corrugated metal houses climb a steep hillside above the harbor, linked by iron stairways and a century old funicular.
What Cerro Concepción looks like
A row of painted corrugated metal houses runs up Cerro Concepción's slope, each facade a different solid color over a wood frame. Roofs pitch steeply and read almost as another wall from below, since the heritage listing treats them as a fifth facade. Carved wooden brackets and stained or bevelled glass show up around doors and window frames on the older houses.
The street plan mixes types within two or three blocks. runs along the saddle between this hill and Cerro Alegre. Sinuous roads such as follow the contour, while steep stairways and narrow passages cut straight up the slope between them. Houses sit on pilotis over the drop or step down into platforms cut and filled into the hillside, with a single building sometimes entered from its upper floor.
The climbs from street level to Paseo Gervasoni in a wooden car, dating from 1883 and now running on electric motors rather than its original hydraulic tanks. Paseo Gervasoni is paved in cobblestone with iron railings, opening onto the port and the bay. The Iglesia Luterana de Valparaíso is a short walk away, its steeple and clock face rising above the rooftops.
is a row of English style semi-detached houses with small front gardens, smooth painted facades and large sash windows, overlooking the hills toward the Almendral district and Viña del Mar in the distance. The stands nearby behind a low wall, a white plastered church under a green roof, without a bell tower.
Shot in Cerro Concepción
Sebastián Yatra and Tini's 2019 music video for Cristina names Cerro Concepción among its Valparaíso locations. The video credits the hill for its viewpoints and passages as well as its galleries and heritage houses, without pinning one exact corner. The scene here is Paseo Atkinson, the promenade of heritage houses the source describes.
Cristina, 2019
Paseo Atkinson
Sebastián Yatra and Tini Stoessel ride a motorbike through Valparaíso for the Cristina music video. Cerro Concepción is one of the named stops, credited for its viewpoints and passages as well as its galleries and heritage houses. The video does not identify one exact corner. Street View
What Cerro Concepción can double for
The Battery in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
The Battery's wood sided row houses are built on a steep hillside above a working harbor, in the same bright reds, yellows and blues as Cerro Concepción's painted corrugated metal rows. The siding is clapboard rather than corrugated metal, which shows in a close push on a wall. There is no funicular here, so a shot built around the ascensor car itself has to stay in Valparaíso. Try searching wood sided row houses now.
Bica in Lisbon, Portugal
Bica runs downhill on a single steep lane, the way Cerro Concepción's stairways do. Its cable funicular, the Elevador da Bica, dates from 1892 and is close in vintage to the Ascensor Concepción. Lisbon's tiled facades and red roof tiles read differently from Valparaíso's painted sheet metal in a tight insert. Bica's funicular runs on rails as a tram car rather than a counterweighted hydraulic car, so a shot of the mechanism gives the city away. Try searching steep lane cable funicular now.
Bo-Kaap's houses are painted in solid blues, pinks and yellows up a hillside street grid below Signal Hill, close to the saturated palette Cerro Concepción's facades carry. Bo-Kaap's houses are flat roofed Cape Dutch terraces rather than Valparaíso's pitched corrugated metal, so a roofline in frame breaks the match. Table Mountain behind the street is unmistakably Cape Town. Try searching painted houses on a hillside now.
