This project, in partnership with the São Paulo’s City Culture Department, was one of the first cultural interventions to upcycle an empty government building. The aim was to first approach the abandoned historical building from a cultural and social perspective to stop physical degradation and identify public demand for the space. The public’s ideas and analysis were then collected and compiled into a dossier to be handed to the government as a different approach to building development.
/// The goals of the project
were to qualify the space to facilitate future interventions and empower public interaction with the immersive experience of the project and building history. Additionally, participatory ways of interaction among the project, the city hall structure, and cultural actors were explored, and possible developments for the Art Palacio were identified according to their vocations, territory, and the needs of São Paulo’s contemporary cultural scene.
/// The intervention
was made possible by the engagement of SCREEN Festival, a part of the 11-year-old LOOP international platform for video and contemporary art based in Barcelona. Two protagonists were featured in the project: The Art Palacio building and the Hans Op de Beeck – Staging Silence peace of art. Two intervention groups were also invited: Nonon Cratures, which explored the city hall waste dynamics, and Lab.Experimental, which explored art-education and relations with the public.
The partnership with Lab.Experimental group resulted in the Estudo Livre project, which outlines the experience with the public and their indications for the future of Art Palácio.
Art Palacio is a part of São Paulo’s cinema history as it was the first large theatre built in downtown during the mid-1930s, and therefore became the founding stone of Cinelândia Paulista, a nickname for the area where all the big city theatres used to be. Initially built for 3.7 thousand people facing a single huge screen, Art Palácio’s history is intertwined with São Paulo’s and cinema’s histories. The building was an investment from UFA, the largest German (and possibly European) company at the time, and its construction blends two styles, Art Deco for the cinema and German Concretism for the hotel above it.
Two years after the opening, the management of the theatre was transferred to a Brazilian film distribution company during the international boycott of Nazism. Over the next twenty years, São Paulo’s population grew from 800 thousand to 3 million inhabitants, leading to drastic changes in the city’s spatial and temporal dimensions. As television became a mass-produced product, coinciding with the Brazilian military intervention from the 1960s to the 1980s, Sao Paulo’s downtown began to depreciate due to real estate speculation elsewhere in the city. Cinelândia, once the most elegant and culturally enriched area of the city, became a forgotten area with cinemas becoming venues for hard porn to survive economically, and Art Palácio was one of them.
After being closed for three years, Demetrio Portugal proposed a cultural intervention as the director of the SCREEN Festival São Paulo pre-edition 2013, with the aim of upcycling the abandoned historical building. The project proposed a cultural and social approach to the building, aiming to halt its physical degradation and to identify its calling and demands from the public. The ideas collected and systematized were then presented to the government as a dossier containing public analysis and ideas for the building’s development and unfolding, which was a different approach than usual.
Art Palacio is a part of São Paulo’s cinema history as it was the first large theatre built in downtown during the mid-1930s, and therefore became the founding stone of Cinelândia Paulista, a nickname for the area where all the big city theatres used to be. Initially built for 3.7 thousand people facing a single huge screen, Art Palácio’s history is intertwined with São Paulo’s and cinema’s histories. The building was an investment from UFA, the largest German (and possibly European) company at the time, and its construction blends two styles, Art Deco for the cinema and German Concretism for the hotel above it.
Two years after the opening, the management of the theatre was transferred to a Brazilian film distribution company during the international boycott of Nazism. Over the next twenty years, São Paulo’s population grew from 800 thousand to 3 million inhabitants, leading to drastic changes in the city’s spatial and temporal dimensions. As television became a mass-produced product, coinciding with the Brazilian military intervention from the 1960s to the 1980s, Sao Paulo’s downtown began to depreciate due to real estate speculation elsewhere in the city. Cinelândia, once the most elegant and culturally enriched area of the city, became a forgotten area with cinemas becoming venues for hard porn to survive economically, and Art Palácio was one of them.
After being closed for three years, Demetrio Portugal proposed a cultural intervention as the director of the SCREEN Festival São Paulo pre-edition 2013, with the aim of upcycling the abandoned historical building. The project proposed a cultural and social approach to the building, aiming to halt its physical degradation and to identify its calling and demands from the public. The ideas collected and systematized were then presented to the government as a dossier containing public analysis and ideas for the building’s development and unfolding, which was a different approach than usual.
About the Building:
/// SAO PAULO CINEMA OCCUPATION HISTORIC
Art Palacio is a part of São Paulo’s cinema history as it was the first large theatre built in downtown during the mid-1930s, and therefore became the founding stone of Cinelândia Paulista, a nickname for the area where all the big city theatres used to be. Initially built for 3.7 thousand people facing a single huge screen, Art Palácio’s history is intertwined with São Paulo’s and cinema’s histories. The building was an investment from UFA, the largest German (and possibly European) company at the time, and its construction blends two styles, Art Deco for the cinema and German Concretism for the hotel above it.
Two years after the opening, the management of the theatre was transferred to a Brazilian film distribution company during the international boycott of Nazism. Over the next twenty years, São Paulo’s population grew from 800 thousand to 3 million inhabitants, leading to drastic changes in the city’s spatial and temporal dimensions. As television became a mass-produced product, coinciding with the Brazilian military intervention from the 1960s to the 1980s, Sao Paulo’s downtown began to depreciate due to real estate speculation elsewhere in the city. Cinelândia, once the most elegant and culturally enriched area of the city, became a forgotten area with cinemas becoming venues for hard porn to survive economically, and Art Palácio was one of them.
After being closed for three years, Demetrio Portugal proposed a cultural intervention as the director of the SCREEN Festival São Paulo pre-edition 2013, with the aim of upcycling the abandoned historical building. The project proposed a cultural and social approach to the building, aiming to halt its physical degradation and to identify its calling and demands from the public. The ideas collected and systematized were then presented to the government as a dossier containing public analysis and ideas for the building’s development and unfolding, which was a different approach than usual.