(Edson Lopes Jr./CASACOR)
Behind a discreet entrance located in Bela Vista , in the capital of São Paulo, is Vila Itororó, a public and cultural space of the Municipal Secretariat of Culture of São Paulo that includes a remaining set of buildings constructed in the 1920s , and which is in restoration phase since 2019. Since its construction, the village has always had housing as its main use, but it became a historical heritage site of the city of São Paulo and was expropriated for cultural purposes in 2013. (Edson Lopes Jr./CASACOR)
With the delivery of the first phase of the restoration project in 2019, which bears the signature of the Pedra Institute — a non-profit organization that develops actions in the field of cultural heritage —, Vila Itororó was inaugurated and opened to the public in September 2021 with various artistic and cultural activities activating already restored spaces and common areas that have been revitalized. (Edson Lopes Jr./CASACOR)
The village is named after the source of the
Itororó Stream – which was located where Avenida 23 de Maio is today – and which supplied water to the village's swimming pool, which was the
first private pool in São Paulo.
Restoration in progress
The first stage of the Vila Itororó restoration project lasted five years and included the completion of architectural projects for all 11 buildings and common areas of the complex. (Edson Lopes Jr./CASACOR)
“Vila Itororó is a project that we are executing in partnership with the city of São Paulo, which manages and owns the space. We did both the architectural restoration part — the projects and the management of the work — and all the construction work. heritage education part of the project”, explains Alan Gualberto , project manager at the institution. The Pedra Institute will now begin the project to raise funds for a new stage: the restoration of the facade of Casa 8 , which has been the main stage for events and shows in Vila Itororó since its reopening in 2021, and the recovery of its roof is essential. to safeguard the built heritage of the house that is currently at the main entrance to the Village. The action will be via ProMAC , a municipal law that allows companies to allocate part of the ISS to cultural projects. Behind the bricks
(Acervo Milu Leite/CASACOR)
Its use in the city of São Paulo was one of the drivers of the significant urban growth experienced at that time, representing the “turning point” from the colonial city, which was built using construction techniques in raw earth – slower and more artisanal – to the city “modern”, where ceramic brick masonry and other industrialized elements made it possible to shorten construction times and the emergence of new architectural and urban scales. Vila Itororó is an architectural complex that bears witness to this process, where a wide variety of these ceramic materials can be seen, from different origins and with the most varied applications. (Acervo Milu Leite/CASACOR)
“Unlike the other villages we will find, this is not a working-class village , it has a more bourgeois character, even the architecture shows this”, explains Alan Gualberto , project manager at Instituto Pedra. Recent studies, carried out during the restoration works of the architectural complex of Vila Itororó, brought to light this variety of origins and application techniques , which end up representing a very specific moment in the history of civil construction in São Paulo, in which the replacement of materials , due to industrialization, occurred in a very intense and, at the same time, experimental way. These studies took an archaeological approach, that is, using qualitative and metric analyses carried out on site, together with bibliographical information, to understand the historical context and social phenomena that produced that architectural complex, formulating several hypotheses about its production. and modification over time, which resulted in a unique architecture , today valued as cultural heritage. The Palace of Vila Itororó
The Palacete da Vila Itororó, inaugurated in 1922 as a monument commemorating the centenary of Brazil's Independence , was designed to be the official residence of Francisco de Castro , a São Paulo entrepreneur who designed the entire space of Vila Itororó in the 1920s. The four-story mansion, with 32 rooms , was created in several stages and was also adorned with gigantic columns, sculptures, fountains, landscaped areas and other adornments. "Looking at the stained glass windows of the Palace, we will see a series of references to
friendly countries , the nations that participated in the independence process", says Alan.
