Old and New in Perfect Symbiosis
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Praça das Artes, designed by Marcelo Ferraz and Francisco Fanucci (Brasil Arquitetura) and Marcos Cartum, has won Building of the Year at the Icon Awards in London. The project competed with works by great names in international architecture: Herzog & de Meuron (with their Parrish Art Museum in Long Island, New York), Renzo Piano (The Shard in London), SANAA (the Louvre-Lens, in the north of France) and Hugh Broughton Architects (the Halley VI Research Station, the world’s first relocatable research facility, located in Antartica).
Work on the Praça das Artes, a cultural arts center that houses the Schools of Dance and Music, began in May 2009, in downtown Sao Paulo, and was completed last year, costing a total of R$ 136 million (about $60 million USD) The Praça das Artes project in São Paulo launched in 2009 was intended to be a delicate yet bold action. Restored old buildings were linked architecturally to new construction to create a new cultural center and promote public interaction in the neighbourhood while at the same time revitalizing downtown São Paulo.
A three-module cultural complex was merged into a single architectural unit covering a total area of 28,500 m². An accent in a grey cityscape. Because the building is exposed to relatively large amounts of pollution due to its urban environment, the architects made a conscious decision for concrete integrally coloured with Bayferrox® pigments.
BRASIL ARQUITETURA