In BrazilArts & Architecture - By Daniel Allen, BBC Travel
From the elevated rooftop of São Paulo’s Unique Hotel, the city is
a sea of identikit apartment buildings, office blocks and single storey villas.
Seen from afar, the hard-edged urban sprawl appears haphazard and devoid of
creative flair. It is an underwhelming landscape that compares poorly with the
more sensual architecture of Rio de Janeiro, about 430km to the north.
Yet those who look a little closer will find that
São Paulo’s contemporary architectural charms are actually a joy to behold. At
the start of the 20th Century, this city was home to a mere 239,000 inhabitants
– it now houses more than 11 million. Despite the whirlwind urban growth, and
in many ways because of it, the São Paulo of recent decades has become a hotbed
of talented Brazilian architects, including Ruy Ohtake and Paulo Mendes da
Rocha. It is their cutting edge structures that now define the city’s landscape
and enhance residential life.
“After Brasilia was made the Brazilian capital in
1960, São Paulo became an architectural desert,” explained Eliana Souza, an
architectural enthusiast and founder of SPin Brazil Tours. “Buildings were constructed with little thought
to their design, to how they fitted into neighbourhoods. Rapid development
destroyed the soul of the old city. It was out of this barren environment that
the Paulista School of
Architecture was
born. The Paulista architects wanted to build for the people. The chunkier
concrete forms of their buildings mixed with the curvilinear buildings of Oscar
Niemeyer, and gradually this helped to improve how the city looked and worked.”
Oscar Niemeyer, the doyen of Brazilian contemporary
architecture, may be more famously connected with the architecture of Brasilia,
but his imprint can also be seen in São Paulo. Together with the nearby Museu de Arte Moderna by the legendary Paulista architect Lina Bo Bardi, Niemeyer’s
striking Ibirapuera Auditorium embodies São Paulo’s love of modern
architecture and the avant garde.
Ibirapuera auditorium, photo by Daniel Allen
Belatedly completed in 2005, the auditorium is part
of a group of buildings inside Ibirapuera Park that all belong to a 1950s Niemeyer
masterplan. Today the park has become São Paulo’s equivalent of New York’s Central Park, a green focal point where residents can relax,
exercise and commune with friends, all while enjoying architecture by two of
Brazil’s finest creative minds.
The auditorium’s most dramatic exterior feature is
a sinuous awning of crimson painted metal – known officially as the labareda (“flame”
in Portuguese) – which juts out over the main entrance like an extended fiery
tongue. The building’s beautifully simplistic trapezoidal structure comes to
life at night when the unblemished white exterior is illuminated by banks of
floodlights. A wide back door opens to an interior stage, allowing for al
fresco summer concerts.
Inside the auditorium, red and white is also the
dominant colour theme. An imposing, organic sculpture by Japanese-Brazilian
artist Tomie Ohtake winds around much of the wall and ceiling of the foyer, its
deep red lines accentuating the foyer’s curved white staircase. The auditorium
also features art by Tomie and graphic artist Luís Antônio Vallandro Keating.
Ibirapuera Auditorium, Tomie Ohtake sculpture, ´photo by Daniel Allen
More work by Tomie can be viewed at the Instituto Tomie Ohtake in Sao Paulo's Pinheiros neighbourhood.
Dedicated to showcasing her work, the institute occupies the first two floors
of a wildly flamboyant office tower designed by her son Ruy Ohtake, a Niemeyer
protégé and one of São Paulo’s leading architects. The curving metallic magenta
and violet façade is particularly eye-catching, while basement restaurant Santinho is well worth checking out for its Brazilian cuisine, with
typically paulistanodashes of Italian, Japanese and Arab.
Tomie Ohtake Institute, photo by Daniel Allen
Tomie Ohtake Institute, curved structures, photo by Daniel Allen
Sitting directly opposite the Ibirapuera Auditorium
is another futuristic Niemeyer building that perfectly complements its more
recently constructed twin. Completed in 1951, and built to commemorate São
Paulo’s 400th anniversary, the Pavilhão Lucas Nogueira
Garcez is more popularly
known by locals as Oca (Indian for “house”). While this
exhibition space is said to resemble a traditional Native American dwelling,
there is more than a touch of the extraterrestrial to its flattened dome shape
and large circular windows.
Oca, photo by Daniel Allen
Fans of Niemeyer’s work
should also be sure to take in the Edifício Copan,
a 140m-high, 38-story residential building completed in 1966 in Sao Paulo's República neighbourhood.
Home to 5,000 people and more than 70 shops, this serpentine, monolithic
structure is one of the largest buildings in Brazil, and has the largest floor
area – 116,152sqm – of any residential building in the world. It is so big it
even has its own post code.
Close to the Edifício
Copan, in the Pompeia neighbourhood, is another of São Paulo’s architectural
institutions – the SESC Pompéia.
This former steel drum factory was converted into a complex for community
activities and events between 1977 and 1986, following a blueprint by Brazil’s
most celebrated female architect, Lina Bo Bardi.
SESC Pompéia, photo by Daniel Allen
“The overarching theme
behind the SESC Pompéia development was about creating spaces for the people of
São Paulo,” Souza said. “It really changed the way the people of the city
viewed old industrial buildings and disused industrial sites, many more of
which have subsequently been developed.”
During its conversion, SESC
Pompéia’s old brick sheds were transformed into exhibition spaces, a library,
an excellent cafeteria and a series of workshop spaces – the latter are filled
daily with pensioners and youngsters learning skills such as carpentry and
photography. The wooden boardwalks and alleyways between buildings are packed
with mothers and children, locals and tourists.
SESC Pompéia, photo by Daniel Allen
Bo Bardi also designed two
new concrete buildings that are connected to the renovated factory by a succession
of linear footbridges and illuminated by distinctive, irregularly shaped
windows with red grills. These buildings contain sports facilities like
football fields, a swimming pool and a solarium.
SESC Pompéia, visitors surrounding art work, photo by Daniel Allen
Bo Bardi was also
responsible for another of São Paulo’s landmark buildings – the city’s iconic Museu de Arte de São Paulo, completed in
1968 in the city's Bela Vista neighbourhood. This suspended box, constructed in
concrete and glass, sits on two u-shaped red columns and stores collections
ranging from the gothic to the abstract. The place is still hugely popular with
the city’s residents and regularly features concerts in the space underneath
the structure.
Perhaps the Hotel Unique
itself best embodies the brave world of São Paulo architecture. Shaped like a
giant slice of watermelon, with a porthole-studded copper façade, this
extravagant, post-modern landmark in the heart of the city’s upscale Jardins
neighbourhood was also designed by Ruy. Looking forward, it is architects such
as he, inspired by the likes of Niemeyer and Bo Bardi, who will further shape
this great Brazilian city.
Unique hotel, photo by Daniel Allen
Eliana Souza - SPin Brazil Tours
