I shook my head, “Uhm, just enough to get by.”
We crammed my bags into the back, got in and pulled away from the airport embarking on a thirty-minute drive – quiet time – during which I was able to contemplate my linguistic ignorance. With only the wind rolling over my ears and the passing waves of traffic, I grew anxious over my living situation. When we had finally arrived and I was directed to my apartment. The price was good and it was certainly nicer than any of the hostels or pousadas I had stayed in thus far, but it felt like exile. Everyone else was staying in the house across the street in the main house – everyone who could speak Portuguese that is. This was Sergio’s plan.
Sergio is a short, balding man with thin glasses and a tamed beard. His large, protruding gut guides his body, which seems to be eternally clothed in military regalia. Every day, his attire is within the same minimal spectrum of beige and as such is a constant reminder of his military service during the dictatorship ruling Brazil from 1964 to 1985 - the same regime responsible for the exile of many artists, including the indispensable icon of Brazilian architecture, Oscar Niemeyer. For me, Sergio represents one of the pervading forms of Brazil’s cultural nationalism (stoked during periods of political turmoil). And yet there is an underlying unity throughout the country that is difficult to explain, except maybe through the mystical powers of futebol, samba and the Portuguese language. Nevertheless, it is ever-present.
There are nearly one hundred ethnicities in Sao Paulo, including and an enormous Italian population and purportedly the second largest population of Japanese outside Japan. Of course this does not come as a surprise considering the country’s history and that the population of the larger metropolitan area of Sao Paulo is around eighteen or nineteen million (the third largest metropolitan area in the world by some estimates, but always within the top five). As a result of international immigrants as well as those from northeastern Brazil, the city has many distinct neighborhoods and districts, as well as an extreme socio-economic distribution of the population. As you might have guessed, how and when these neighborhoods came about – the history of Sao Paulo – is a rather lengthy story and you won’t find that here. Let’s just talk about what we see – the surface of the city.
“It is the ugliest city in Brazil.”
This, according to Sergio, sums up the vision of Sao Paulo and I have to say, he is not alone. Many paulistanos (residents of the city of Sao Paulo) feel the same – aesthetically, the city is generally perceived as dirty, unsafe, and chaotic – an urban, “concrete jungle” (at the beginning of the year the city implemented a ban on large-scale advertising and has thus revealed or accentuated the concrete city hidden beneath). Everywhere there are gates, fences, walls, security cameras and other signs of the culture’s obsession with security. Helicopters populate the sky, transporting the elite from home to work or a weekend getaway, all the while skirting the city’s traffic congestion below. The media is saturated with stories of crime, violence and the ongoing struggle between the economically disparate classes. Televised news is probably the worst with its images of dead bodies, blood, and people being shot by the police. Yeah, I have created a pretty crappy image of the city I know, but it is not all that bad.
Sao Paulo has the richest cosmopolitan culture in Brazil, competing only with Rio de Janeiro. With a large array of music, art, literature, cuisine, etc. nearly everyone is bound to find their place in the city – their happy place, if you will. And of course, with all the culture and all that money comes architecture, particularly modern architecture.
Architecture Stuff
(put on your headphones)
From atop the Banespa building in Sao Paulo, before you is a vast sea of neighborhoods draped over the original rolling topography of the Serra do Mar (sea-range). One can see the hundreds, maybe thousands of condominiums popping up everywhere. It is hard to distinguish anything in such a seemingly homogenous visual ground, but look hard and you can see some landmarks including the line of towers over at Avenida Paulista, Sao Paulo’s largest cathedral, Catedral Metropolitana with the palm-tree lined Praça de Se in front, and even Mercado Municipal, a large indoor market selling everything from pig-in-a-bag to Japanese fruits. For overall overientation, the Serra da Cantareira Range is to the north. What you cannot see are all the hidden architectural gems in the city.
Oscar Niemeyer is an unavoidable reference in Brazil. His name is synonymous with architecture, like Frank Lloyd Wright in the United States. In a film I saw at the Museu Oscar Niemeyer in Curitiba, a friend of Niemeyer’s went so far as to make an analogy between Niemeyer and god (he is after all 100 years old and still ticking, but until he sees 200 then I’d say we have to question this analogy). So while most American architects roll their eyes every time another Frank Lloyd Wright pop-up book featuring Falling Water hits the stands, I think generally Brazilians feel different about Niemeyer. His outward support for his country and his exile and later return would tie him to the culture socially. Today he represents not only modern architecture, but also the many of the struggles the country has endured this century and it’s return to democracy.
As stated, Niemeyer is 100 years old and apparently still puts the pen to paper, which is amazing. With so many years behind him, he also has an enormous portfolio. His most important works in Sao Paulo include the Memorial da Ámerica Latina, several buildings within Parque do Ibirapuera, and the iconic COPAN building, a curving tower seen in almost any aerial photograph of the city.
The Memorial da Ámerica Latina is a complex including seven buildings and two plazas connected by a pedestrian bridge spanning a large street. With large, open concrete-paved plazas surrounded by formal, monumental structures, the project shares many qualities to the rest of Niemeyer’s work. At the center of one of the plazas, is the most recognized element of the design – a wounded hand, like that of Jesus, bleeding in the shape of Latin America. Despite the monumentality of the entire complex and each of the buildings, it all recedes in the presence of the hand. It also functions as an apt response for those when a foreigner speaks to you in english. Talk to the hand.
Americana Latina
Parque do Ibirapuera is the Central Park of Sao Paulo. Paulistanos retreat to the park for recreation and also to visit the Bienal, Museu de Arte Moderne and the Pavilhão da Oca. This year the Bienal hosted an architecture exhibit for one week under the enormous theme of public and private space. The exhibit was fairly weak, as it was not cohesive and basically functioned as advertising for the local architects. There was however some very good lectures by international groups, including Urban Thing Tank, based in Caracas. Check them out at www.u-tt.com. Other interesting presentations included cooperative projects in China from multiple dutch firms (Cebra, Cobe, Effekt and Transform) and an exhibit by Feld72 (I can’t get inside their website but check out their guerrilla tactics about marking urban spaces…and their name sounds like a late 90s ‘punk-rock’ band).
Parque do Ibirapuera
COPAN
Second to Niemeyer in Brazil, is Paulo Mendes de Rocha. This year he won the Pritzker Prize, often considered the most prestigious award in architecture (Niemeyer won it in 1988, sharing it with Gordon Bunshaft, who happens to be a Rotch Scholar – it’s like the six degrees of separation – now can anyone weave Kevin Bacon into this, seriously?) As a result, his body of work is becoming more recognized internationally. Rocha has several buildings in Sao Paulo you should know about.
Pinacoteca do Estado was originally design by Ramos de Azevedo in 1897 as the High School of Arts and Crafts (as far as I can figure, tech schools are known are high schools in Brazil – not to be confused with universities). Rocha capped the roof preserving the interior courtyards and inserted minimal interventions such as walkways, stairs in an elevator. The entire building is flooded with light and the contrast between the old brick and the eggplant painted steel is an aesthetic easily appreciated.
Pinacoteca do Estado
At what was once proposed as the site for a new shopping center sits the Museu Brasileiro Escultura (MuBE). Constructed entirely of concrete, this small museum, most of which is underground, is in an unusual location as it sits within a wealthy residential neighborhood. At ground level, several terraces, all paved create different scales of public space. An enormous concrete block hovers above the terraces further defining the space, and marking the site. As with other works of Rocha’s, the span is a strong formal gesture, seemingly defying gravity and forming public spaces. Also pictured below is the Patriarch Plaza and Viaduct do Chá.
MuBE
Patriarch Plaza and Viaduct do Chá
Modern architects in Brazil repeatedly employ tectonic acrobatics monumentalizing the social experience, yet often forgetting architectural subtleties that make these spaces successful. Rocha’s seems to function fairly well, but only as a museum in a residential neighborhood – the scales are right on, but the location is awkward.
Lina Bo Bardi, Brazil’s another renowned Brazilian modernist created one of the most successful modern public spaces in Sao Paulo at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP). Again, a portion of the museum is underground, but with glazed walls facing north. The rest of the museum floats above the ground plane, supported by two large u-shaped structural members (actually four large columns and two large beams). Its success is partly attributed to the large void it creates, a moment of repose, just off the major thoroughfare of Avenida Paulista. Unfortunately, as a result of later changes to the interior layout there is little connection between the museum above and public space below. Still, the space is filled with swarms of schoolchildren, people taking a lunch break and passers-by. I also saw a group of four scantily-clad women followed by a television camera and was soon thereafter offered some hashish by the locals who control the only area to sit around the building. In any case, it is an interesting building, constructed with some pretty low technology – masses of concrete and lots of labor. Also check out SESC-Pompeía, a readapted oil-drum production factory. See if you can figure out how the cylindrical tower was constructed.
MASP
SESC
Oops, I forgot Villanova Artigas, another heavy hitter of Brazil’s modern architecture. Among other works, check out the School of Architecture at the University of Sao Paulo (FAU-USP). Another building about the mixing of people under one massive roof. He, like Rocha, helped established the Paulista school of architecture, also know of Brutalism (Niemeyer belonged to the Carioca school).
FAU-USP
SOME OTHER STUFF
Brazilians love to shop. They love phones (dare I say even more than Americans!), sunglasses (damn that oppressive tropical sun), shoes (or havaianas, the ubiquitous Brazilian sandal). And contrary to outdated versions of Lonely Planet’s guide to Brazil, the country is not cheap. With the exception of food and lodging, one can easily spend the same amount of money as Americans from day to day. Unless one is looking for cheap reproductions, many from China, things are expensive, especially electronics.
Brazilians love to drink, and not just juice and coffee. Beer selection is generally pretty limited to a few major labels such as Skol, Brahma, Itaipavu and Bavaria. They are nearly all pilsners; so if you are looking for a dark beer, go elsewhere. The best part about drinking beer here is the communal aspect. Rarely do people get their own individual beers, but rather groups share what might be compared to a 40-ounce bottle in the U.S. In Brazil, the bottle is kept in the middle of the table, plastic koozie and all, and everyone gets a small cup. And then of course, there is cachaça. The best stuff comes from Minas Gerais (and so does the best cheese) and can come in a variety of flavors, but to my palate usually tastes like cactus, at least the good stuff. Generally speaking though, the alcohol content is very high and one has to be careful not to sip down too many caipirinhas (lime, sugar and cachaça) in an evening.
I spent nearly a month in Sao Paulo, so there is a lot more to share and see, but we have to move on. After a month in Sao Paulo, I traveled to Rio de Janeiro for a few days (amazing combination of city/ocean and amazing beaches/dramatic landscape/favelas), followed by Curitiba (modern city, like an American city retroactively modified with European spatial characteristics), Iguazu Falls (HUGE falls) coming off the Iguaza River at the border between Brazil and Argentina, and now here in Buenos Aires. I’ll report back sooner than last time.
Intellectuals abound in Sao Paulo, just look at what they sell next to M&Ms in the subway.
Graffiti is prolific, and it is often very good. Below is the 'regular' graffiti, but there is also pichação, which is actually an art form closer to typography than imagery. The third image of the abandoned building shows examples of pichação, but it exists everywhere in Sao Paulo and many other Brazilian cities.
Campers just don't get the same respect in the U.S.
Did I mentioned that motorcycles are insanely popular here? Gregg, call Larry and set up a shop down here.
Typical Brazilian houses. Security fences and car-ports meet the street. Security fences are everywhere, with almost no exceptions. This is part of the Rotch study to be published next.
Catedral de Se
Liberdade, the Japanese neighborhood, yet it never really appears overwhelmingly Japanese.
Tomie Ohtake Institute - postmodernity in Sao Paulo.
Sao Bento a shopping street that gets crazy just about every day, especially around the holidays.
I have approximately eleventy-billion photographs like this - condos galore.
A Market on a street in Vila Madelena, where I lived.
Avenida Paulista (it is difficult to photograph from ground level).
A favela to your left and a new business district beyond. The district is consuming the illegal squatter settlements (which are often fully constructed houses and neighborhoods - so much so that sometimes it is impossible to distinguish what is legal and what is not).
Jardins neighborhood.
Brazilian karaoke. I am conspicuously missing from the photograph.
After a month in Sao Paulo, I traveled to Rio de Janeiro for a few days (amazing combination of city, ocean, sandy beaches, dramatic mountain landscape and favelas), followed by Curitiba (modern city, like an American city retroactively modified with European spatial characteristics, plus an internationally recognized bus transportation system), Iguazu Falls (HUGE falls) coming off the Iguaza River at the border between Brazil and Argentina, and now here in Buenos Aires.
Oh, and yes. They have Christmas in Brazil.
