The style of Sao Paulo
Boutique hotels, modernist architecture, world-class retail in Brazil
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Paulistas are very proud of their modernist architecture, especially the
Copan, a 1950 apartment building designed by Oscar Niemeyer, who worked
with Le Corbusier on the United Nations and created Brasmlia, the
capital city.
Elsewhere, a repurposed 1930 train station, Sala Sao Paulo, has been
turned into a strikingly contemporary symphonic hall. The Museum of Art
of Sao Paulo (MASP), a landmark 1968 building by Lina Bo Bardi that is
suspended above a plaza by colonnades at either end without any interior
supports, has a collection that includes works by Renoir, Cezanne,
Manet, Degas and Modigliani.
While traveling around town by car is essential, it is easy to stroll
for hours in the Jardins district. Set on a sloping grid of narrow
streets, the Jardins has scores of restaurants, sidewalk cafes and
luxury high-rise apartment buildings separated from the sidewalks by
gates and lush foliage.
"When you are in the Jardins, it's very easy to think you are in the
richest country in the world," said Lauer Alves Nunes dos Santos, a
semiotics professor I met while having lunch at Pret Cafe,
a small Jardins restaurant tucked away in a restored house. As an
American dining in a neighborhood hangout — where a buffet set out in
pretty glass bowls and iron pans makes you feel as though you've
stumbled upon a private lunch party — I was a novelty.
cont'd....
http://www.insidebayarea.com/travel/ci_3720518