Sao Paulo, Brazil

Sao Paulo was an immense city, it is the #7 largest city in the world. We took a rooftop tour of the first skyscraper in the city and were able to get a good look at the city's landscape. The city seems to go on forever. I don't know if it was because the city is so huge, but it seemed way more international than Buenos Aires is. 

Weirdly, the city Sao Paulo is world renown for its sushi and seafood because of the high population of Japanese citizens (hence the internationality). We visited a fruit market and the produce looked beautiful and tried lots of exotic fruits.

A trip to Brazil would not be complete without a lot of Oscar Niemeyer, this is the first of many. An apartment building, very difficult to sketch. Most of his stuff is pretty recognizable as his but I didn't mind it that much. His domelike stuff I'm not too keen on but for some reason I like the amoeba like slabs. A pain in the butt to sketch though.

We went to a presentation by the housing department of Sao Paulo that was talking about how the things that they were doing to provide housing for their citizens. In Sao Paulo they have three kinds of settlements that we would consider slums - favelas, irregular, and slum tenements. The favelas are the shantytowns that we are probably more familiar with the imagery of, the irregular settlements are communities that were sold land by developers that they didn't have a right to sell. So technically they don't, or aren't supposed to, own the land but they've built homes and communities there. The slum tenements are the larger buildings in the central part of the city that are run down or overcrowded. We were able to visit an irregular settlement that the city's housing department is working on incorporating into the city. So they are adding it to the electricity and sewage grid and issuing land titles for the homes. It was pretty cool, it was right on a lake and the city has put in a waterfront park that is really nice. It was very different from visiting the villa in Buenos Aires, much more neighborhood like.

We also visited the SESC complex by Lina Bo Bardi. The SESC is a complex of buildings that is part of a larger community center-like network. You buy a membership to the organization and you have access to all of it amenities like gyms, art studios, kitchens, libraries, pools, theaters, etc. It is a really well run organization. The complex is built in a restored factory so a lot of the spaces were wide open brick spaces that were beautiful.

Lastly we visited Niemeyer's pavilion in the park. Currently, they were holding the Sao Paulo Biennale so there was lots of great art on display and the space was really lively which was great to see it like that. The curves and ramps are concentrated at the back of the building and go up three stories. It is a really beautiful space, but again very much like his other buildings.