Memory Recovery From the Graph: Matriz Church of Ambato 1904-1949

The scarce material cultural heritage of the city of Ambato in the Republic of Ecuador represents a significant pillar in its historical memory and collective identity, which has been diminished by natural disasters and certain urban development policies. In the republican era, in 1904, a notable example of architecture began to be built – the Catholic Matriz church, a vaulted stone building that gained great symbolic importance in the city. It partially collapsed in the 1949 earthquake and was eventually demolished to make way for the current modern cathedral. This present work, based on the research of historical documentation, graphically reconstructs the Matriz church, also providing a recount of its background that gave it meaning and its relation to the values of built heritage, emphasizing the importance of recovering historical memory through graphics. This work is based on the research project «Architectural analysis of the central nucleus of Ambato between 1895 and 1949: styles, types, techniques, losses, and continuities», which was conducted from 2021 to 2023, with the sponsorship of the Dirección de Investigación y Desarrollo of the Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Ecuador.