120 m² apartment in iconic São Paulo building is full of color and prints

The resident of this apartment is a lawyer, actress and cultural manager and sought out the Pílula Antropofágik Arquitetura office, run by architects Richard de Mattos and Maria Clara de Carvalho , while she was still in the process of purchasing her property in São Paulo with the intention of carrying out a complete renovation. Before purchasing a 120 m² apartment in the city center, the client split her time between the capital of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. For the new phase, the client chose an apartment in the iconic Louvre building , designed by São Paulo native João Artacho Jurado in the 1950s, located on the traditional Avenida São Luís, in downtown São Paulo. The building has been listed as a heritage site by Conpresp (Municipal Council for the Preservation of Heritage) since 1992. To adapt the layout of the old property to the needs of the new resident, the apartment underwent several modifications. “As this was Pílula’s first project in São Paulo, our biggest challenge was finding good partners to carry out the work,” reveals Richard. “The client loves to enjoy her freedom and entertain friends; therefore, she wanted the kitchen to be integrated with the living room , while still allowing for the possibility of division, and for the bathroom to be comfortable and well-lit, with a separate bathtub and shower. To achieve this, we incorporated part of the service area into the bathroom, making room for the whirlpool bathtub. Between the living room and the kitchen, a panel made of solid peroba rosa was installed, found during a demolition,” explains Maria Clara. In the social area, the color palette is inspired by the tiles on the building's façade, which invade the balcony , bringing a delicate shade of pink to the ceiling, which is also replicated on the doors, frames and skirting boards. The blue-green tone on the walls was intended to make a reference to nature and the waters of the Rio de Janeiro sea. The parquet floor is original to the apartment and was restored, with a matte finish. Several pieces of furniture featured in the social area are from the client’s personal collection. “She already had very interesting furniture and ornaments, acquired over the years, which clearly told her life story. This ended up being the starting point for a cool and colorful project, which spoke to those objects that told a lot of her story,” says Maria Clara.

Among the pieces are the antique floor mirror , with three hinged panels; the antique china cabinet with a gold finish ; the vintage bar cabinet with an orange body ; the trio of tiled tables , used as a coffee table; the traffic light resting on the floor , among others. “The black bookcase resting on concrete bricks , in fact, worked in an isolated and vertical position in the old residence. This new arrangement served to display the decorative pieces that are part of the client’s collection”, explains the architect. Another highlight is the “Toada” triptych , positioned above the sofa, a 150x230cm oil on canvas by visual artist João Fasolino . “The artist often takes car trips along Brazilian roads and this ends up being a striking characteristic of his creative process. This work, for example, was created after traveling to the Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul regions and constructs a ‘tropical’ image based on clichés, addressing a discussion about the popular idealization of what would be local,” says Richard. In the kitchen , the colors are more intense: the refrigerator box has a magenta lacquer finish and the upper cabinets are in aqua green lacquer . The carpentry design was all made of MDF plywood and covered in natural freijó leaves. The countertop was made of white quartz and, for the front, the duo designed a gutter to hold spices and utensils, with a mirror in the background. It reflects the covering of the opposite wall, which is reminiscent of fish scales . In the resident's bedroom, the starting point was the patterned wallpaper . “It was the inspiration for painting all the walls in the room in the same shade of blue, bringing a sense of coziness to this space,” says Richard. In the bathroom , the countertop was designed in translucent pink marble , with lighting underneath. The floor is all in white Portuguese stone, to give it a light feel and to evoke the promenades of Rio de Janeiro's beaches. The lower cabinet was designed by the architects, made of wooden slats arranged in a chevron pattern.