Self-taught architect and El Alto resident Freddy Mamani Silvestre’s bold and brightly coloured cholets embody the colours and motifs of Aymara culture, forming a symbol of the community’s newfound prosperity. For much of the 20th century El Alto was a low clutch of squat, brick buildings. My father used to tell me stories of his years here as a teenager, riding his Jawa motorbike through a place with no roads; there was no city. In the last 30 years, the bricks have gone skywards. El Alto is now a city of dazzling facades; of a ‘New Andean Architecture’ of chrome and lurid acrylic panelling. Leading the change is a new middle class, drawn from a myriad of indigenous groups bolstered by increasing spending power and social capital in the wake of the 1952 revolution. This cholo identity manifests in the cityscape but also other artistic and social contexts; in hip-hop collectives rapping in Aymara, freestyle wrestling with Cholita heroines and radical environmentalism. The new urban class is powerful.

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