The thesis here presented proposes a historical, urban and architectural study of Santiago de Chile since its foundation as a colonial city in 1541, with a special focus on its religious buildings. This, with views towards a restoration project capable of revaluing them, from their condition of quality spaces for the development or urban life. Since Chile and its current institutions and socio-cultural characteristics are partially the result of colonization, the thesis starts from the idea of Santiago as a colonial city. This urban scale’s research it based on Bibliographic and Iconographic sources, centred on the ideological bases of this process: the continental reality within which Chile and Santiago develop is one where cities are diffusing devices of the European political, cultural and religious canon.