“(On certain afternoons we would go up

the building. The daily city,

like a newspaper that everyone read,

gained a lung of cement and glass.)”

João Cabral de Mello Neto, 1942-45

The historical importance of the Post Office building is increased by its urban location. There is no dissociation between the value of the heritage and its context. The central region, in fact, is the depository of an urban and existential experience constitutive of the formation of our public sphere. It is this remarkable situation of urban experience, emptied or disturbed by the process of decentralization of the metropolis, that we intend to affirm and unfold in the adopted party.

The accesses:

The permeability of the building, a strong feature of our proposal, manifests the desire to extend the public space to its interior and relies on the original plurality of its accesses. Three situations are offered to the passerby: the main entrance through Vale do Anhangabaú, the side entrance through São João and the entrance through Beco do Piolim, completely revalorized, besides the vehicle access through Praça Pedro Lessa. Historically, the very geographical position of the building, situated on a slope of the valley, defined that these accesses would be made by three different levels. It is the building’s conformance to the topography that strongly suggests that accesses offer the passerby continuity of route.

The void:

The reading of the specific qualities of the building guide the interventions in both construction and demolition. The internal requalification of the building, added to the intention of connecting the accesses in its different levels, led to the proposal of a great central void, configured by the connected galleries and a transparent roof, inaugurating a new dynamic of the building’s internal space. It is also in this great void that the circulation system is inserted, connecting the various levels with escalators.

All the external façades will be restored, including the original façades open to the Piolim square and the main entrance lobby. The central void reveals the structure of the galleries, now enhanced, and creates new facades for the building. The spatial organization of these galleries, as a function of their structural unity, provides a criterion for the constitution of the new openings.

The new building:

The construction of a new building, which contains the performance rooms, a plaza at the level of the alley, completes, in a precise manner, our party, functionally requalifying the original building. The demolition of the additions at the bottom of the lot made it possible to endow the Post Office Cultural Space with fully adequate and modern performance rooms and to solve technical aspects, fundamental to the desired standards of comfort and safety. A garage and service patio in the basement; a covered plaza and an elevated one, at the level of the Beco do Piolim, both interpreted as extensions of the theater and the circulation of the building and, at the same time, a place to be and for cultural practices (such as exhibitions, open cinema sessions, or perhaps public meetings with telematic resources); two flexible theaters, since they can house meetings or conferences; and, finally, a technical floor, which houses, among others, the air-conditioning equipment and the water tanks.

The cultural space in the renovated building:

The first floor, on the level at Vale do Anhangabaú, is occupied entirely by the post office branch. The disposition of all activities related to the post office on the same floor, integrated to the basement of the new building (patio and parking), guarantees a horizontal fluidity of the activities.

The sidewalk on the level of São João Avenue is marked by the philatelic agency. Opening immediately onto a square located on the central void floor, which houses the ticket sales office for all events in the cultural center as well as for shows in the city, it gives access to a restaurant and tea room and to the theater foyer (also an exhibition space).

On the first floor, access occurs in a square, an extension of the Beco do Piolim. In the galleries that surround the central void, next to the restaurant-bar (overlooking the São Bento Monastery), are spaces for fluid circulation: buying books and CDs, reading, playing games.

On the second floor, the library, which occupies the gallery facing the Vale do Anhangabaú, was valued in our proposal. Foreseen to hold more than 30,000 titles, besides the CD collection and the map collection, this space will be able to keep a collection specialized in the history of the city, plastic arts and architecture. Next to it, a large acclimatized room offers all the technical conditions (air conditioning and humidity and light control) and security conditions to receive all kinds of exhibitions.

The third and last floor, with another cinema with equal flexibility, houses an exhibition hall and several rooms for courses or conferences, which together with an area destined for coffee and a kitchen for buffets, provides an interconnected use for holding congresses and conventions.

Urban Aspects:

The recomposition of the functional sense of the traditional center, understood as “a local territory articulated and articulating the global metropolitan sphere”, stems from the availability of adequate urban contexts, categorized equipment and services, and, consequently, the recovery of real estate values and activities. These required conditions maintain an interdependent relationship with transportation, security and parking activities; an equation that involves an integration of society and the various levels of government.

The urban recovery perimeter delimits an area marked by several buildings of historical importance that characterize a fertile scenario of transformations, constituted by a cultural, commercial and services pole, with potential to induce and leverage urban and environmental recovery.

The Pedro Lessa Square is affirmed as the external and effectively public extension of the Cultural Space, that is, the activities developed there should expand naturally over the Square, serving as an open stage for great events or the exhibition of great sculptures, reflecting the dynamics of the Cultural Space of the Post Office.