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Architects: UNA Arquitetos
- Area: 6199 m²
- Year: 2017
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Manufacturers: Reka Iluminação, Screens, Stamp
Text description provided by the architects. Maria Antonia Street is a landmark in the history of the University of São Paulo (USP) and a landmark in the cultural and political life of the city. It became a catalyst for academic and social discussions with the installation of the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters at that address in 1949.
After the violent invasion of the building by a group of right-wing students, accompanied by the police, in 1968, the Faculty of Philosophy was transferred to the University City. The relevance of these events defined the reason for including the building's main building construction into a heritage list of the city.
The reform and restoration project seeks to adapt the set (Ed. Rui Barbosa and Joaquin Nabuco) to the new use, a nucleus of contemporary art that agglutinates exhibition spaces, rooms for theoretical and practical courses, the Theater of the University and has as central question to affirm the public character that historically marked this patrimony of USP. The proposal includes the restoration of the main facades and maintains intact the volumetric of the Rui Barbosa and Joaquim Nabuco buildings, but proposes a new relation of the set with the city. The free area between the two buildings gains the dimension of public space, forming a small square. At street level, this square is the natural enlargement of the sidewalk and defines an inviting access to the set. On the lower level, a wooded patio connects the two buildings, creating a place for outdoor performances. To requalify the free spaces, offering a generous connection of the set with the city, is the contribution of the project to the memory of the academic, cultural and political movement that had its headquarters in Maria Antonia Street.
The most significant interventions took place in Edifício Rui Barbosa. The project maintains the spatial organization of the building, characterized by a central staircase and three halls of different sizes. The opening of the side porch revealed the original wall of the building's primitive construction, from the first decade of the twentieth century. The largest room, facing the interior of the lot, had no slab, both on the ground floor and on the first floor; its floor was constituted of bars and wood floor, totally compromised by the action of fungi and termites. This structure was replaced by metallic pieces and concrete slab, sized according to its new use, allowing exposure of works with concentrated load. Consequently, the side facade, inexpressive, reveals this intervention and requalifies the plan that goes back to the new public space. The brise-soleil, which occupies much of this façade, is an industrial filter composed of stainless steel wires. The panels were modulated from the factory and screwed into the metal frame.
On the ground floor are the exhibition halls, one of them with wide openings to Maria Antonia Street. The lower level is occupied by service spaces, technical reserve, in addition to a cafe and a dance and music room. And on the first floor, three more rooms of exhibition, of different dimensions.
The project reveals the different times of the buildings and the set of transformations that accompanied their different occupations. Remains spaces, lot background, original buildings and new constructions through squares, ramps and a footbridge. The Maria Antonia University Center is not a building, but intertwined fragments, articulated parts of a densely occupied urban center. Used especially by students and by great diversity of people, a striking feature of the center of São Paulo, the Maria Antonia project is a hypothesis about intervening in the consolidated city. A reflection on building from the existing city, with a fragile patrimony in its architectural qualities, its relations with the urban memory and the desirable transformations in the central region of São Paulo.
