Monument Status
Concepts that define the status of Heritage

The concept of "heritage asset" is related with the tangible or intangible assets that a social group has inherited from its ancestors. Usually, these assets are exceptional expressions of the spirit of the national culture, and preserving them aims at strengthening it, purifying it, and leaving evidence of achievements whence the new generations shall build their future.

Cultural heritage, as any other asset, must be well managed and dynamically exploited so that the expected benefits may be derived from it. Therefore, cultural-historical heritage should not necessarily be considered a museum piece.

The five categories of axiological analysis that are most pertinent to its urban-architectural condition, among many others, are:

a.	Originality: The condition of being an unparalleled, highly creative piece of work, not copied from another national or international work, and that therefore represents an asset per se.
b.	Singularity: The condition of being a unique specimen, not liable to reproduce itself or to be reproduced.
c.	Representativity: The condition of embodying values recognized by the national community as their own, and rendering the piece of work an emblematic quality. In other words, representativity is the symbolic load hosted in a created reality.
d.	Materiality: The physical condition in which a piece of work is embodied. It represents the economic value and the quality of the materials used, or the high technology employed, which extols common materials and obtains results that normally require a much higher investment.
e.	Vitality: The capacity to maintain transcendent values alive. This is expressed through the cultural dimension that a piece of work of this type is capable of producing around it; the "quality of life" it shelters; the resolution of social tensions that dwell inside every community, and the mutual assimilation of the subcultures involved, etc.

Application of Heritage Categories to Sewell

The comparison between Sewell's urban-architectural and conceptual images, as established by means of the preceding axiological categories, enable a diagnosis of the relationship between the camp's functional and aesthetic values and heritage assets.

With regards to originality, Sewell is one of the most original places in Chile and South America. For the moment, it is the only permanent mountain camp-city in Chile, a country that, paradoxically, is limited on the east and west by huge, uninhabited mountain ranges.

Despite this lack of previous experience, the original camp was capable of developing to become one of the most attractive settlements in the world. Its Mine's production costs were among the lowest, despite the ever-decreasing ore grade. However, the city's living standards were very high, as measured by the degree of satisfaction of its inhabitants and other indicators.

There are two aspects that are frequently mentioned and that need clarification: the fact that occupants do not hold title to the land would appear to be a significant limitation to its cultural development. Those who state this criticism forget that private possession of the land was not known to any pre-Columbian American culture.
The second aspect is that the wish to live in Sewell was not purely due to economic reasons. In fact, unlike other places, in the "city of stairways" there were no general stores with preferential prices. On the contrary, their prices were somewhat higher than those in Rancagua. General stores that use tokens as the means of trade were prevented from the outset, so businesses were privately managed. A discrete ceiling price control was exercised.

The layout of the camp on the site is original, insofar as it is not frequent in South America to find mining sites on such a steep mountain range. Even though the Andes run along the continent from end to end, this is where the steepest slopes are found. This forced the camp to straddle the mountaintop with a backbone stairway, which gave it its name: the "city of stairways".

This makes Sewell a highly original city, both within the country and abroad, free from any previous models or explicit references.
With regards to Sewell's uniqueness, no other place in the world may be claimed to equal or resemble it.
For one thing, the uniqueness of the camp-city is explained by reason its location, economy, buildings, etc. Industrial cities, however, are often similar on account of extreme environmental demands, as in the case of the old saltpeter mine offices -some of which are national monuments- which form a typology of industrial settlements.

The case of Sewell is different however, since it was established to develop in a singular location within the history of Chilean mining. Other copper and nitrate operations were mainly concentrated in the warm lands in the north of the country.

Moreover, human settlements like Sewell are unlikely to develop in the future, given that the new mines that are coming into operation do not give rise to the sense of a camp, where family, housing, and work blended into a single whole. On the other hand, the laws and ordinances in force concerning architecture and city planning would render another Sewell unfeasible, as they would certainly render unfeasible another Valparaíso, the city on the hills.
Sewell's representativity derives from its genesis and development, which is an epic that pooled audacity, effort, and tragedy on a scale never seen before in this type of endeavors.

Most often, from the point of view of the "developed world" mining and benefiting from raw materials is a simple collection activity. However, reality shows that it is a hard and strenuous task performed against the background of torrid deserts, humid and rarified tunnels in the center of the earth, the oxygen-less atmosphere of the mountains, or the boundless immensity of the oceans.

The history of this camp-city is interwoven with painful experiences that deal both with personal and social misfortune: the "trial and error" method that gave rise to the city plan cost many lives. The pioneers lacked any experience in life at high altitude, because they were foreigners from the prairies, and Chilean peasants.
Braden was a tenacious and generous entrepreneur, who worked side by side with his men and fell in love with this country, just as any Chilean would. On account of his vast contribution, the Government of Chile honored him with the Cross of the Order of Merit.

William Braden and El Teniente encouraged an important chapter of Chilean economic, mining, entrepreneurial, and social life in the 20th century, in a trajectory that made the old English saying a reality: "The right man at the right place."