Brazility Check

Modern architecture gets a Latin spin in São Paulo.

By Karim Rashid

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There are over 18 million people in greater São Paulo, and the cityscape looks like four Manhattans – it spans over 3,000 square miles. The best views, from the rooftop pool of Hotel Unique, include a panorama of skyscrapers that seems to go on forever. I recently met the hotel’s architect, Ruy Ohtake, a protege of Oscar Niemeyer. He has created a bold monument to his mentor: an upside-down copper-clad arch punctuated with round windows.

A sense of brazility is evident in all of Ohtake’s work, such as Torre Faria Lima, a pink glass structure, and the Tomie Ohtake Institute, built in honour of Ruy’s mother, which houses retrospective exhibitions by the likes of Arne Jacobsen, Roy Lichtenstein and Nuno Ramos. Rocking sculptures by Tomie Ohtake grace the massive lobby. They are beautiful contorted rods that speak to the spiritual minimalism of Japan and the organic flux of Brazil.

The city is immersed in modern architecture, like the Museu de Arte Moderna with its glass facade facing Ibirapuera Park. There was a show on when I was there by Volpi, a Brazilian artist who has dedicated much of his life to the study of flags. The all-glass café faces the museum’s sculpture garden, so I drank great Brazilian coffee while examining the pieces, including a massive Louise Bourgeois spider.

My favourite architect is the Brazilian Oscar Niemeyer, who just turned 99 and is still working. He is a master of buildings that appear to float above the ground, exposing nature. He designed São Paulo’s Latin America Memorial, a piazza with a sculpture of a hand whose wound bleeds in the shape of Central and South America. The place is so perfect but barren; I was the only one in this oasis of sensual Modernism.

My favourite shop, on Rua Oscar Freire, is Galeria Melissa, a Brazilian company that produces about 100 million injection-moulded shoes a year. I designed high heels and a sandal for them, and each one smells like strawberry and vanilla. Other boutiques worth seeing are Clube Chocolate, Rosa Cha and Carlos Miele. Hotel Fasano is also nearby; though it’s just three years old, it looks like it was built at the peak of Brazilian Modernism.

Globalove,

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