S.Paulo etc.

São Paulo – a shock and awe kind of beauty

By Claire Rigby, at Folha de S.Paulo in English

Our beloved metropolis is aesthetically powerful, but in the traditional sense, it’s no looker. It’s a shame the architectural treasures we do have are so sparse and so unknown – because they are so very good …

There are plenty of cities that are a thrill to touch down in: the descent into Buenos Aires’s waterfront Aeroparque, for example, with the big baroque city reeling back from the mighty River Plate. But for scale, repetition and sheer persistence, São Paulo, spooling away endlessly to the horizon, is an impressive contender.

Read on.

Architect Oscar Niemeyer’s national Congress building, Brasília, from Vincent Bevins’s blog in English, at Folha de São Paulo. 

‘It’s not only that Oscar Niemeyer’s monumental creations evoke a mid-twentieth century vision of a utopian future. It’s also that they are plopped in the middle of the Planalto, or Brazil’s hot central plateau, where there was nothing before they decided to build a city there in the 1950s. So the structures jut into a huge and very blue sky.’

Department of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo (USP).

Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo, Universidade de São Paulo.

Taken by nomadspirit, using Instagram.

SESC Pompéia cultural centre, São Paulo (1977).

The huge, stunning centre, which has spaces for gigs and shows, art exhibitions and workshops, plus a dentist and a library, was designed by Lina Bo Bardi. An Italian who immigrated to Brazil in 1946, aged 32, she was also the creator of São Paulo’s most iconic building, the MASP museum of art on Avenida Paulista.

’São Paulo homes 1947-1975’ – book launch (wait – 2nd edition book launch‽) at the Museu da Casa Brasileira on Thursday.

Lanzamiento de la segunda edición del libro ‘Residências em São Paulo’.

El libro presenta la obras fundamentales de la arquitectura moderna paulista. El lanzamiento es el día 10 de nov. en el Museu da Casa Brasileira.

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(via edicionesarq)

Maksoud Plaza hotel, São Paulo, by Clairex on Flickr.

I’ve got another set of pix of this amazing hotel aqui-ó.

Copan

photo by Andreas Gursky, São Paulo 2002

via melisaki

(via fuckyeahsaopaulo)

The Banespa building, downtown São Paulo, with the Martinelli building to the right and the Banco do Brasil to the left. Seen from the valley of Anhangabaú.

Palacio Barolo, Buenos Aires. You could walk past this magnificent building on Avenida de Mayo and barely notice it, unless you craned your neck.

Thirty years of retro-luxe stylings at the Maksoud Plaza, São Paulo’s original luxury hotel.