The Municipal Market of São Paulo confirms its vocation for grastronomy and tourism. There are more than 600,000 visitors per month and 3,000 employees ready to serve them. In the wholesale section, about 300 tons of food are bought every day by free market traders, greengrocers and renowned restaurateurs in the country.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
SÃO PAULO - MUNICIPAL MARKET - MERCADO MUNICIPAL DE SÃO PAULO
Thursday, January 25, 2007
SÃO PAULO'S SKYSCRAPERS
Edifício Itália, Avenida Ipiranga. Height, 165 m 541 ft, Floors, 46. Construction end 1965. Architect: Franz Heep
Amazing facts:
1) On the 45th floor is the Terraço Itália restaurant with sweeping views of the city.
2) Built to honor the thousands of Italian immigrants to São Paulo.
3) Upon completion, Edifício Itália became the 2nd tallest building in São Paulo.
4) The facade has 6,000 square meters of glass distributed in 4,000 windows. (Information from Emporis Buildings)
Copan Building, Avenida Ipiranga. Height, 140 m 459 ft, Floors, 40. Construction end 1953. Architect: Oscar Niemeyer.
"Amazing facts:
1) The building name was inspired by a Mayan Temple in Honduras.
2) The building is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest structure built in Brazil.
3) The condominium has 107 employees to serve and maintain the building.
4) Due to the large number of residents, the city hall gave the building its own ZIP code.
5) According to IBGE, a major research institute in Brazil, the building has a larger population than 547 cities in the country.
6) The Guinness Book of World Records also claims this building has the largest floor area of any residential structure in the world." (Information from Emporis Buildings)
Hilton Hotel, Avenida Ipiranga. Height, 130 m 427 ft . Floors, 36. Construction end 1968.
The building you see with a flag atop the structure is Altino Arantes Building , (known as Edifício Banespa), Rua João Brícola. "The flag is 7.2 meters long by 5.4 meters wide. It is the ensign of the State of São Paulo and is replaced every month. Height, 161 m 528 ft, with 36 Floors. Construction end in 1947. Architect: Franz Heep and Plínio Botelho do Amaral."
1) The building's form was inspired by the Empire State Building.
2) The building has 1119 windows and its staircase has 900 steps.
3) In 1947 this building surpassed Prédio Martinelli as the tallest building in São Paulo.
4) Although the building is not the tallest in the city, it is located on the highest point in the downtown. This makes the observation deck one of the best spots in town for sightseeing.
5) The building facade is covered by porcelain pieces; inside the building some floors are decorated with Carrara marble and Ipê and Jacarandá parquet blocks.
6) The observation deck is open to public visitation. Every month about 5600 people visit the observation deck.
7) Tallest building from 1947 to 1960, until Mirante do Vale was completed.
8) When completed, the building was the tallest high-rise building in the world outside the United States." (Information from Emporis Buildings)
All information about those buildings comes from this great site: Emporis Buildings
UPDATE: The city of São Paulo, in accordance with City Mayors Statistics, “is the world’s second-largest city, has a population of just over 10 million people. If the whole metropolitan area is included, the figure reaches over 15 million. São Paulo is now Brazil's biggest city. São Paulo, the largest city of Brazil and of South America, is an ultramodern metropolis with skyscrapers, palatial homes, and spacious parks and recreational facilities. The state of São Paulo has 645 municipalities and a population of approximately 40 million inhabitants. With the country's best infrastructure and a highly skilled labor force, São Paulo can be called "Brazil's locomotive". São Paulo is also the financial and industrial center of Brazil. Because of its economic and demographic weight, São Paulo has always played a pivotal role in Brazilian politics."
Click on photos to enlarge
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
FELIZ ANIVERSÁRIO, SÃO PAULO! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SÃO PAULO!
Happy 453 years!
Instituto de Educação Caetano de Campos (School)
Praça da República (Square)
The "S" shaped building is one of Niemeyer's buildings named Edifício Copan. About five thousand people living in this building. Oscar Niemeyer (1907-) is the most famous Brazilian architect wich among many other things designed the whole Brasilia town, capital of the country since 1960. These photos were taken by Carlos Mascaro from the top of the Itália Building.
Itália Building
.
Avenida São Luís (Avenue)
Thursday, January 18, 2007
JULIETA PRANDI "LA NENA"
Fotos Julieta Prandi
A WALK IN THE PARK - UM PASSEIO NO BOSQUE
"The Cerrado is 1,916,900 km² (740,100 sq mi) in size, covering the Brazilian states of Goiás, the Federal District, most of Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, and Tocantins, the western portions of Minas Gerais and Bahia, the southern portions of Maranhão and Piauí, small portions of São Paulo, Roraima and Paraná. The Cerrado also extends into northeastern Paraguay and eastern Bolivia. The Cerrado accounts for 22% of Brazil's area, an area the size of Alaska. It is the largest savanna in South America."
"The Cerrado is characterised by an enormous range of plant and animal biodiversity. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, it is biologically the richest savanna in the world. The region is increasingly threatened by single-crop monoculture plantations (particularly soybeans), the expansion of agriculture in general, and the burning of the vegetation for charcoal."
"The "cerrado" are not homogenous. There is great variation between the amount of woody and herbaceous vegetation, forming a gradient from completely open "cerrado" — open fields dominated by grasses — to the closed, forest-like "cerrado" and the "cerradão" ("big cerrado"), a closed canopy forest. Intermediate forms include the dirty field, the "cerrado" field, and the "cerrado" sensu stricto, according to a growing density of trees."
"The "cerrado" trees have characteristic twisted trunks covered by a thick bark, and leaves which are usually broad and rigid. Many herbaceous plants have extensive roots to store water and nutrients. The plant's thick bark and roots serve as adaptations for the periodic fires which sweep the cerrado landscape. The adaptations protect the plants from destruction and make them capable of sprouting again after the fire."
"Despite the fact that the "cerrado" covers an area equal to that of Western Europe (2 million km²), the cerrado's importance has been overshadowed by its more emotive cousin, the Amazon rainforest."
You can read more about "Cerrado" and also see beautiful photos in this great site.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
SCULPTORS
"George Segal (November 26, 1924 - June 9, 2000) was an American painter and sculptor associated with the Pop Art movement. Although Segal started his art career as a painter, his best known works are cast life size figures and the tableaux the figures inhabited. In place of traditional casting techniques, Segal pioneered the use of plaster bandages (plaster-impregnated gauze strips designed for making orthopedic casts) as a sculptural medium. Initially, Segal kept the sculptures stark white, but a few years later he began painting them (usually in bright monochrome). Eventually he started having the final forms cast in bronze, sometimes patinated white to resemble the original plaster. Segal's figures had minimal color and detail, which gave them a ghostly, melancholic appearance. In larger works, one or more figures were placed in anonymous, typically urban environments such as a street corner, bus, or diner. In contrast to the figures, the environments were built using found objects."
"Painter with Dog" (J. Seward Johnson)
John Seward Johnson II (born 1930), "also known as J. Seward Johnson, Jr. and Seward Johnson is an American sculptor known for his trompe l'oeil bronze painted sculptures. While early in his life, his artistic life focused on painting, he turned his talents to sculpture in 1968. Johnson is most well known for his life-size cast bronze statues of people of all ages engaged in day-to-day activities such as a father teaching his child to ride a bike, a woman sunbathing, and two people on a park bench. "
Click on photos to enlarge