Vila Itororó Canteiro Aberto

About Us

Vila Itororó is an architectural ensemble created by Francisco de Castro, encompassing more than ten buildings erected in the course of the twentieth-century, for the purposes of residence and leisure. Vila Itororó is located on the banks of the Itororó Valley, on the border between the Liberdade and Bela Vista neighbourhoods, downtown São Paulo. It occupies an area of 6,000 meters square, right in the middle of a block. Vila Itororó became a listed site, by an act of CONPRESP (at municipal level) in 2002, and of CONDEPHAAT (at state level) in 2005. In 2006, it was declared an area of public interest, expropriated and converted into public usage by São Paulo State government and by the City Hall, for cultural purposes. The restoration of Vila Itororó, started in 2013, is carried out by means of a partnership between São Paulo Culture Municipal Secretary and Instituto Pedra.

Temporary Cultural Center

What goes on behind the partitions of a restoration worksite? When is the work really finished? Who defines the future usages of a place that is being restored? Who is the audience who will come to frequent this place? With what resources are public works funded? The opening of Vila Itororó’s restoration worksite is a way of responding to such questions and of pointing to other issues, rendering visible the many decisions that add value to the place being restored and that validate it as heritage.

Visits and Spontaneous Usages

A visit to the patio of houses allows the visitor to share in the state of the restoration process. The tour also describes the development of Vila Itororó, which contains a little of the formation of the city of São Paulo itself. The visitor has access to the many histories that compose the ensemble: its conception as a “house-monument” surrounded by houses for rent, the issue of water as a structuring element in Vila Itororó’s life, the Eden Liberdade Club and the resistance of the families who have lived in the last decades in the site. The public is stimulated to imagine, debate and take part in the discussions regarding the future usages of Vila Itororó, so that the meaning of the preservation of a public heritage site is appropriated collectively.

Confira os materiais produzidos durante o encontro

Histories

The sound archive, under construction, is composed by different voices of the people who lived here in Vila Itororó, others who have passed through this place or else who work here.

It is not enough to look at Vila Itororó in order to see it. This visual archive, under construction, composed by images from different times, points to many Vila Itororó’s that exist within Vila Itororó, and that the naked eye cannot reach.

A lot has been written about Vila Itororó. From the work diary by Francisco de Castro, creator of Vila Itororó, plus the words written by dwellers, architects, urbanists, artists, governors and researchers from diverse areas.

Em Obras Projects

Eden

Vila Itororó Patterns

Public Psychoanalytic Clinic

Panapanã

How to Inhabit Vila Itororó

What comes to mind when one hears the words “architecture” or “architectural heritage”, in the context of Vila Itororó? There are many people who think only of the palazzo, the biggest and most central building of the whole group. But what if we tried to think architecture not only grounded on its buildings (the full volumes), but of the spaces between the buildings (the empty volumes).

Every building site in the industry needs machines for carpentry/woodwork. Working in heritage worksites specifically require such machinery, in order to repair windows, doors, floorings and other wooden artefacts. In Vila Itororó Canteiro Aberto this carpentry area is not restricted to restoration work: it is open for the city to use.

In the parlour, a common reason brings all together: a song, a film, a theme or a task to carry out; sometimes, it is just the simple desire to be together with other people. More than a parlour, the meeting room at Vila Itororó seeks to render public the actions and conversations that normally take place in private spaces, restricted to a small group of friends.

A library, be it domestic or public, is always in permanent growth. The book collection available for reading at Vila Itororó is still being gathered and anyone can collaborate by donating publications aimed at all age brackets.

Behind the house, the yard is the place where the sun shines on, illuminating the garden and the vegetable plot. An affluent of the Itororó spring runs through the yard. Itororó, in the local Amerindian language, means “noisy water”.

Cultural centers usually have restaurants and snack bars; but to what extent could they host culinary activities of their patrons as part of their cultural programming? The inauguration of the Public Kitchen puts the act of cooking collectively as one of the multiple possibilities of use of the public square that is the shed of Vila Itororó.

The bedroom is the most intimate place in the house. Perhaps this is why it is the place around which our ways of living are organised – from the most intimate to the most public, from the core to the outside, from the smallest to the biggest. To understand how to inhabit the rooms at Vila Itororó constitutes possibly the most delicate issue confronting us, since our answers will influence the usage of all the other spaces.