Oswaldo Calatayud Criales

This essay aims to reveal one of the problems faced in the city –prostitution– , not to rigorously examine it critically or to boast a solution, instead to alternatively glance at the city under the terms of sexual trade and nightlife. The city is understood as a subject of study, valued for the knowledge it contains in many fields and certain as a case study. However, the infidelity of the nocturnal city is undeniable and offers objections precisely on its parallel bodies and on its unusual dynamic. The prostitute is an unmissed figure in the city, and the relation between both needs to be interpreted. Not just because of the occupation the now named sexual worker practices, but because of the use and effect she has in the city: deforming imperceptibly its condition and relativizing, in some way, all the urban system with the architecture of the cathouses and their situation on the streets.
Their presence thus creates an imaginary of an alternative city. It is through this that the following document demonstrates something important, the recognition of ourselves in the architecture and in the city, opened to the immanent knowledge sheltered in alternative activities, like those of night spaces and times.
Key words: night, sexual worker, rose zone, cathouse.

	Resumen El gesto urbano de la prostitución en las ciudades de La Paz y El Alto. Prostitución, ciudad y arquitectura.
	El ensayo pretende encarar una de las problemáticas de la ciudad –como es la prostitución– persiguiendo no un examen de rigor ni una solución jactanciosa sobre el tema, sino una mirada alternativa a la ciudad bajo la excusa del comercio sexual y la noche. Se ha entendido la ciudad como una materia de estudio cuya valoración es principio de conocimiento en muchos campos y un tema de análisis certero; sin embargo, la infidelidad de la ciudad es innegable y ofrece reparos justamente en sus cuerpos paralelos y en su dinámica aleatoria. La prostituta es una figura infaltable en la ciudad y la relación entre ambas precisa ser interpretada, no sólo por el oficio que practica la hoy llamada trabajadora sexual, sino por el uso y efecto que tiene en la ciudad deformando su condición imperceptiblemente y relativizando todo el sistema urbano bien por medio de la arquitectura de los prostíbulos, por su acomodo en la calle o por la conformación de un imaginario de ciudad alternativo. En este entendido, el siguiente documento insinúa algo importante: reconocernos en la arquitectura y en la ciudad abiertos al conocimiento inmanente resguardado en actividades, espacios y tiempos otros como los de la noche. Palabras claves: noche, trabajadora sexual, zona rosa, prostíbulo.

	Abstract The urban gesture of prostitution in the cities of La Paz and El Alto. Prostitution, city and architecture.
	This essay aims to reveal one of the problems faced in the city –prostitution– , not to rigorously examine it critically or to boast a solution, instead to alternatively glance at the city under the terms of sexual trade and nightlife. The city is understood as a subject of study, valued for the knowledge it contains in many fields and certain as a case study. However, the infidelity of the nocturnal city is undeniable and offers objections precisely on its parallel bodies and on its unusual dynamic. The prostitute is an unmissed figure in the city, and the relation between both needs to be interpreted. Not just because of the occupation the now named sexual worker practices, but because of the use and effect she has in the city: deforming imperceptibly its condition and relativizing, in some way, all the urban system with the architecture of the cathouses and their situation on the streets. Their presence thus creates an imaginary of an alternative city. It is through this that the following document demonstrates something important, the recognition of ourselves in the architecture and in the city, opened to the immanent knowledge sheltered in alternative activities, like those of night spaces and times. Key words: night, sexual worker, rose zone, cathouse.