Brazil’s long-established company for the preservation of culturally vital websites and buildings, the Institute for Nationwide Creative and Historic Heritage (IPHAN), has been profitable in defending lots of its trendy architectural icons, amongst them Oscar Niemeyer’s Brasília Cathedral and Affonso Eduardo Reidy’s Museum of Fashionable Artwork in Rio de Janeiro.
However in a rustic with loads of traditionally vital structure – from baroque to brutalist – there have been misses, the results of politics, scarce sources, and different challenges that each nation faces in its preservation efforts.
The doorway to the mansion
(Picture credit score: Tuca Reinés)
Most notably in São Paulo, the opulent mansions constructed by sugar and occasional barons within the mid-to-late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have all however disappeared, regardless of their distinctive place within the metropolis’s historical past. Progress has been made within the type of authorized safety for the few properties that stay. However safety is one factor, restoration is sort of one other. The hefty invoice that comes with the latter typically falls on patrons of the humanities corresponding to Carlos Jereissati.
‘These buildings are a part of our DNA. They’re a part of who we’re, the historical past of our metropolis, and broader Brazil. We will’t allow them to disappear,’ says the previous CEO and present board member of Iguatemi, the corporate that launched the shopping center to Brazil through the late Sixties. ‘We have to lead by instance in this stuff, to point out the intense facet of our tradition, previously and now, throughout our time.’
Casa Higienópolis: Iguatemi’s newest revival challenge
Casa Higienópolis’s gothic-style wooden panels and doorways at the moment are complemented by gilded partitions, modernist café tables and up to date Flos lighting within the bar space
(Picture credit score: Tuca Reinés)
Jereissati’s dedication to preservation has solely grown with follow. Iguatemi’s newest revival challenge, Casa Higienópolis, is the corporate’s third. In 2014, he acquired an important however missed metal and glass residence impressed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth Home and restored it to create Casa Jereissati.
Earlier this yr, working with Lissa Carmona of furnishings maker Etel, he remodeled modernist icon Jorge Zalszupin’s former residence (a key instance of contemporary Brazilian design) into Casa Zalszupin, a museum devoted to the designer’s legacy.
Carlos Jereissati at Casa Higienópolis
(Picture credit score: Tuca Reinés)
Casa Higienópolis is positioned in its namesake neighbourhood, one of many metropolis’s most noble. The five-storey, 2,400 sq m, French neoclassical-style mansion was commissioned in 1927 by Carlos Leôncio Magalhães, a rich espresso farmer, entrepreneur and financier of the period, often known as the ‘King of Espresso’. At this time, the mansion sits in stark distinction to its environment. Higienópolis includes principally midcentury high-rises, corresponding to Edifício Louveira and Edifício Bretagne, which helped redefine this upscale neighbourhood within the late Nineteen Fifties.
Authentic architectural fixtures
(Picture credit score: Tuca Reinés)
Inside, neoclassical design mingles with Brazilian aptitude. The mansion’s 40 rooms are replete with French-inspired interval particulars, together with intricate, handcarved woodwork and ornate plaster ceilings. It has all been painstakingly restored, offering a shocking juxtaposition to Zalszupin’s trendy furnishings used all through, and a portion of Iguatemi’s up to date artwork assortment.
Highlights embrace works by Rio de Janeiro-based artist Chiara Banfi, who appears to be like to the world of music to tell her installations and sculptures. All of it provides guests a deep and assorted sense of Brazilian historical past, a present to not solely Iguatemi’s clients and companions, but additionally the town.
Artwork deco-inspired lavatory
(Picture credit score: Tuca Reinés)
Consistent with its restored sister properties, Casa Higienópolis will probably be used for the whole lot from style occasions and VIP shopper luncheons to lodging for visiting style business figures; it’s going to additionally host an intensive calendar of public occasions. The primary is a brand new architectural strolling tour of the neighbourhood, created by Iguatemi and operated out of Casa Higienópolis.
‘We aren’t typical shopping center house owners. We don’t simply lease out areas, however are dedicated to inspiring our shoppers and neighbours,’ says Jereissati. ‘My imaginative and prescient for Iguatemi has at all times been about celebrating the perfect of Brazil.
iguatemi.com.br (opens in new tab)
A model of this text seems within the December 2022 Entertaining Concern of Wallpaper*, obtainable in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple Information +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* at the moment (opens in new tab)
The mansion’s exterior immersed within the backyard’s greenery
(Picture credit score: Tuca Reinés)
(Picture credit score: Tuca Reinés)
Supply: Wallpaper
