Larcomar

The green level at the end of José Larco Avenue covers the roof slabs of Larcomar, while shops, a cinema, and parking lie beneath the grass. From the upper park, escalators lead down the slope to shopping galleries and open terraces above the Pacific Ocean. From the street, the complex is almost invisible: the edge of the cliff retains the appearance of a park, although its space descends several levels.

In nineteen ninety-five, the architect Eduardo Figari brought together partners to build a shopping and entertainment complex at the end of José Larco Avenue. Figari was responsible here both for the design and for the company Larco Mar: he chaired its board of directors. His income and investments depended on whether the edge of the cliff could be turned into an operating commercial facility.

The Municipality of Miraflores did not sell the park to the company. Under an agreement dated December thirtieth, the company was granted the right to use Alfredo Salazar Park, the slope, and the space underground for sixty years. The company received income from the complex, but when the term ended, all the buildings were to pass to the municipality.

Figari had to fit two different spaces onto one site. Builders removed the former park, dug an excavation, and placed the shops, cinema, and parking below the level of Malecón de la Reserva. The shopping galleries stepped down the slope, while a new park was created above. When Larcomar opened on November twenty-seventh, nineteen ninety-eight, grass returned, now over the roof slabs of the underground spaces.

That is why, from José Larco Avenue, what you mainly see is the green upper level, while escalators lead down to the shops and open terraces. The name Larcomar was formed from the name of Larco Avenue and the Spanish word “mar,” meaning sea: the street ends right here, at the Pacific Ocean.

The upper level retained another name: Alfredo Salazar Park. Alfredo Salazar Southwell was a twenty-four-year-old military pilot and instructor. During a rehearsal for an aviation parade on September fourteenth, nineteen thirty-seven, his plane caught fire over Miraflores. Salazar ordered the mechanic accompanying him to jump by parachute, while he himself steered the aircraft away from the houses toward an undeveloped site by the sea. The mechanic survived; Salazar died.

The plane crashed not on the site of Larcomar, but at Santa Cruz Hacienda, closer to today’s Avenida del Ejército. Sixteen years later, Miraflores residents named this park on the cliff after the pilot. During construction of the complex, the park was moved to the new upper level, and in two thousand twenty-two, a preserved fragment of the fuselage of that plane was inserted into the Salazar bust installed here. Larcomar’s premises lie beneath it; the metal itself from the crashed aircraft remained above.