EDIFÍCIO COPAN
Modernist building with a sinuous shape, offering a striking contrast with the other buildings of old São Paulo
Designed by Oscar Niemeyer, it is the most imposing concrete structure in São Paulo, an emblematic building of the city that was in the midst of transformation and unbridled expansion in the 1950s. It was born in the midst of unbridled urbanization, and above all in a rush to "verticalize" São Paulo, in the American style. Its creator, nicknamed the "genius of curves", conceived this grandiose structure in a sinuous form reminiscent of a wave, in the most daring modernist style. He wrote: "It is not the right angle that attracts me, or the straight, hard, inflexible line... what attracts me is the free and sensual curve".
The building offers a striking contrast with the other buildings in old São Paulo. Imagine a building 115 metres high, a façade of 45,000m2, 35 floors, 1,160 apartments and almost 2,000 residents. Commissioned to commemorate the city's 400th anniversary, this pharaonic work was halted several times due to a lack of funding, and it was completed in 1957 with the participation of banks.
. A city within a city! In the Copan building, there are 72 shops and an old cinema which functioned until 1986 and was replaced by a church which closed in 2008. Only a hotel and a theatre were not built in the original plans. The Copan building fell into disuse in the 1970s, as did the city centre, and again attracted the middle classes in the 1990s when the area was renovated.
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