The expansion of the Casa Mário de Andrade Museum in São Paulo begins

An expansion work that will practically double the area of the Casa Mário de Andrade Museum was started this week at Lopes Chaves Street in Barra Funda, São Paulo City.

The intervention will connect the writer’s former residence in São Paulo to two 2-story houses that also belonged to the writer’s family.

It will allow an expansion of the exhibition and research rooms and the installation of an auditorium, cafeteria, store, and accessibility, with new ramps and an elevator.

The reopening is expected between the end of the first semester and the beginning of the second semester of 2023.

The expansion will cost R$8.5 million (US$1.6 million), of which R$1.1 million was used to expropriate the two 2-story houses, which most recently functioned as boarding houses.

During the work, which will last seven months, the museum will hold its on-site activities at Casa Guilherme de Almeida in Pacaembu and will continue with a virtual program. Public access has been temporarily closed since Monday.

The two houses are next to the main house and were bought together by the writer’s mother, Maria Luísa, in 1921.

The idea of the matriarch, already a widow, was that her male children would move to the neighboring addresses when they got married, which happened to Carlos but not to Mário.

Mário remained single and lived with his mother, his aunt (Ana Francisca, aunt Nhanhã), and his sister (Maria de Lourdes).

It was in the main house that the writer spent most of his life meeting the other modernists of the Group of Five on Tuesdays in 1922, produced iconic works, and died in 1945 of a heart attack at the age of 52.

During those years, he wrote about his residence in letters and poems, and after two years in Rio, he even cited the happiness of returning to the old address.

VISIT

The expectation is that the expansion will also allow an increase in the public and the potential of the place as a cultural, research, and tourist space. Before the pandemic, the average was over 4,000 visitors per year.

The expectation is that the number will at least double, according to Marcelo Tápia, director of the São Paulo Literary Museum-Houses Network. “It is a gain for the neighborhood; it will collaborate with the revitalization of Barra Funda.”

According to him, the expansion was a “yearning” of years. “The houses are connected even by the roof. That is, nothing more natural than to extend the museum to the houses that are already part of the same history.”

Among the new exhibits, the idea is to bring a concept idealized by Mário, a “museum of reproductions,” with replicas to be appreciated sensorially. “We will use current resources, including technology, to bring an increasingly dynamic environment, with renewed themes,” comments Tápia.

Another idea is that Mário’s studio will gain a virtual reality space where visitors can visualize the characteristics of when it was part of the writer’s residence.

The auditorium, for 78 people, will host lectures, workshops, film sessions, and other cultural activities.

The construction work also includes changes to the main house.

The main entrance will be through one of the two-story houses, while the current one will be used as a cafeteria and store in the lobby. The basement, currently unused, will have restrooms, changing rooms, and other facilities.

LEGACY

The state secretary for Creative Economy and Culture, Sérgio Sá Leitão, highlights that the expansion will be a legacy left by the activities in celebration of the centennial of the Week of Modern Art.

“It is so that the celebration does not end now; it gives a character of continuity,” he says. He evaluates that the structure was very “short” of the potential and needs.

“Now we will have a museum that is up to the standards of what Mário represents and means to the culture of São Paulo and Brazil,” he says.

With the construction work, the museum will also have accessibility in Braille, hand-sign, and audio-description, in addition to receiving new fire prevention and combat system.

In addition, the goal is to increasingly value Mário’s legacy as an artist and an intellectual and public manager, linked to innovative projects in early childhood education, culture, folklore, and preservation of cultural heritage.

“He was one of those rare figures that we can define as a renaissance man, an intellectual, a complete artist, and a cultural manager who promoted many advances in the history of our country’s cultural policies,” highlights Sá Leitão.

MEMORY

The house and the two townhouses are part of the same construction by engineer Oscar Americano, dating from the beginning of the 20th century and of eclectic style.

The buildings are semi-detached and have a continuous roof. With the annexes, the museum will increase from 417 m² to 783 m².

Mário’s residence was listed in 1975 for its recognition as a space linked to a historical personality, not for its architecture. The others were considered “surrounding areas” with height restrictions but did not need to be preserved.

For the work, it was decided to restore most of the original characteristics of the two-story houses, especially the external ones, such as the facade, because it was understood that they were also connected to the writer’s trajectory.

The technical evaluation identified that the two-story houses were in “deterioration”. Among the problems are masonry erosion, humidity stains, and infiltrations.

The repair will maintain the external architectural characteristics of the two 2-story houses, made of brick masonry, which will undergo internal modifications and gain a link between them and the main house.

In addition, at the back, annexes will be built, which will be “invisible” from the street and allow the implementation of accessibility and other interventions.

In the document sent to heritage agencies for approval of the project, it was pointed out that the houses were built “on land expanded to the west in the city of São Paulo, following the railway and industrial occupation of neighborhoods such as Barra Funda, Brás and Mooca”.

Mário’s house was expropriated in 1987 to become a Literature Museum. Initially, it functioned as a Cultural Workshop. In 2018, it was reopened to the public as the Casa Mário de Andrade Museum, when it gained a permanent exhibition with some of the writer’s items, such as his piano, bookshelves designed by him, and personal objects.

Most of the collection is from the Institute of Brazilian Studies of the University of São Paulo (USP). Before Barra Funda, Mário lived in residences on Aurora Street and on the corner of Paiçandu Square and Rio Branco Avenue, both in downtown São Paulo.

With information from Estadão