Quito: beauty and history

One of this hemisphere's lofties capitals, Quito, Ecuador, is almost two miles above sea level and only fifteen miles south of the equator. Occupying a high fertile hoya or basin, between the towering mountains of the Andean cordilleras, the city's setting is one of unsurpassed natural beauty. With a population of a million and a half, Quito is a city of contrasts, a place where native Indian and imported Spanish traditions intermingle, and where the pre-colonial past exists side by side with the post-modern world.

In Ecuador, climate is measured by the kilometer, and extremes of temperature and vegetation are determined principally by altitude, Set in a verdant sun-drenched valley, the climate of Quito is forever springtime, in a single day the weather may vary from clear, bright skies, with the heat of the sun barely filtered in the thin air, to a precipitous drop in temperature as shivery cold rain sweeps down from the cratered heights.

The Spaniards founded modern Quito in 1534, on the same site where the Incas had established the capital of their northern kingdom just decades before, and where centuries earlier the Indian confederation of the Quitu and Caras, whom the Incas vanquished, had located their capital. Quite, along with Mexico City and Cuzco, is one of the oldest pre-Columbian capitals in the Western Hemisphere.

In 1563, the Spanish crown created the audiencia, or high court, of Quito, which made the city the local center of the imperial bureaucracy. It grew rapidly as an administrative and commercial center, but was increasingly known, as is evident today, as a religious center with many ecclesiastical establishments. The early architecture of the Ecuadoran capital is so grandiose in large part because of the power and wealth or the church in colonial times and the influence of the religious orders. There are more than two dozen churches and convents in the historic center of the city. The finest examples of Spanish Baroque architecture and the plastic arts can be found there. In Quito, Spain created one of the most beautiful cities of the New World, and the fame of its magnificent churches spread abroad the renown of its artists and craftsmen.

The largest church and monastery is that of San Francisco, which occupies the full length of the block on the plaza of the same name. Founded in the same year as the city itself, it is a massive edifice of stone. The church and adjoining convent was the first to be erected by the Franciscan order in South America. The church of San Francisco is lavishly decorated, its main altar rich with platinum, gold, and myriad tiny mirrors. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Franciscans trained artists and craftsmen, many of them Indians, giving rise to the Quito School of Art, a rich mixture of indigenous and Spanish styles that expressed the Counter-Reformation imagery of religion, with "bold colors and exuberant decoration" and emphasized the suffering of Christ.

The interiors of the city's most famous churches and monasteries are the repositories of priceless examples of Spanish colonial art and sculpture. One of the most famous artists of the Quite School was the Indian known as Caspicara, whose poly-chromed religious sculpture. Descent from the Cross, can be found on a lateral altar in the Iglesia de la Compana de Jesus, which has the richest, most spellbinding interior in a city known for its lavish architecture.

In colonial Quito the magnificent old churches and monasteries tower above the low colonial buildings, with their red tile roofs and their tall wooden doors and windows painted Moorish blue. The narrow cobblestoned streets are lined with graceful arcades and some of the buildings hide flower-filled patios.

However, the bustling metropolis of modern Quito encircles the colonial quarter, inching its way up mountainsides, enclosing the airport, and stretching out into the valley. It is the home of several universities, the national symphony orchestra, the national dance company, and a rich diversity of twenty-three museums, including the Museo Arte Colonial, Museo Casa de Sucre, Museos de La Casa de La Cultura, Museo Antropologico Shuar, Museo Fundacion Guayasamin, Casa Museo Manuela Saenz, and the Museo del Convento de San Francisco. It is also the political center of the country.

In 1978, UNESCO inscribed Quito on its World Heritage List, declaring the colonial center of the city to be part of the universal cultural patrimony, the first city in the Americas to be so designated. This established the basis on which the colonial center was to be preserved. It was to be conserved uniformly and in its entirety, all the houses whitewashed with their doors and balconies painted blue. Now, however, as travel writer Dominic Hamilton has observed, "change is apparent everywhere you look." While respecting the intent of UNESCO's designation, local authorities have been experimenting with making the colonial center an even more agreeable place to visit and in which to live.