Thomas Locke Hobbs

Currently: Buenos Aires

Memorial da America Latina

You don´t have to go to Brasilia to experience Oscar Niemeyer´s wacky architecture. Right near the center of São Paulo is his Memorial da America Latina. It was opened in 1989, despite it´s rather 60´s Jetson´s look. Niemeyer has never really altered his style. The centerpiece of the memorial is a vast, shade-less, sunbaked, concrete plaza--perhaps not the best feature in a tropical city. The project strikes me as one of those self-congratulatory public projects that don´t do very much good. The quote at the bottom of the bleeding hand is from the then-governor of São Paulo state.

The site is located next to one of the major transit points in São Paulo; Barra Funda, where the train, subway and multiple bus lines converge. A shopping mall would´ve been a better contribution to the urban fabric. Instead Paulistas have a vast, fenced-in, ceremonial dead-zone in the heart of the city. I suppose the models at least looked cool.

The Official website. Neimeyer´s website, showing a number of his later projects.

Labels: brasil

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Hi. I'm a 32 year-old American currently living in Buenos Aires. Before that I lived in California, Sao Paulo and New York and if you browse through the archives below you can see photos of all those places. I also have an old geocities page with some outdated information but also more photos of Buenos Aires, friends and my 9/11 pictures.