Edifico Copan

June 10th
Today was our first day back to classes after our long weekend celebrating the Revolution of 1932 when Sao Paulo attempted to overthrow Getulio Vargas. In Portuguese we spent most of the day reviewing the imperfect subjunctive and talking about important artists and writers from Brazil. Almost as soon as classes let out we had to rush off to get to the Praça da Republica near the city center to meet at the Edifico Copan for our tour. Molly, Aleisha, Alison, Angelika and all decided to get lunch in Republica so that we could check out a new area of town. It was a new Brazilian culinary experience for us as we all decided to go to a Brazilian-ized Yakisoba launchonete. It was a great bargain as Aleisha, Molly and I were all able to split a large veggie noodles for 8.00! We also decided that we needed snacks to make it through the day; Aleisha got a matte shake, I got maracuja/passion fruit and lime cream puffs, and Alison and Angelika got acai.
Once we had our snacks we all walked up the block to arrive at the Copan building which is one of the largest apartment buildings in Brazil. It has over 5,000 apartments, its own police force, a shopping center, and its own zip code; you could realistically live without ever leaving the building. The building was designed in the shape of a giant wave in the 1960s by Oscar Niemeyer as a modernist housing development. Part of the reason we were touring the building was because of its role in two short stories that we read for class. The author, Regina Rheda, lived in the building during the 1980s and it features prominently, almost as a character itself, in the stories.
Our tour was co-guided by the building administrator (who himself has lived there for 50 years) and a resident who is a professor at USP. Since it is an active apartment complex we were not able to walk around the building freely, and we spent most of the time in front of the administration office hearing about the building’s history and impact on the city. After our lecture we were walked around the ground floor where the shops and restaurants are located (it’s the size of a mall!) and then were able to go up to the top floor where they have an open deck for the residents. The views were amazing! You could see the city laid out before you in all directions. The Edificio Copan is about the same height as the adjacent Edificio Italiano, which is another important building (one of the tallest skyscrapers in the mid-century) which has a penthouse restaurant and bar. We spent about 30 min on the roof taking pictures in all directions before we returned to ground level and continued with our walking tour of Republica.
After the Edificio Copan we walked a few blocks over to the Largo Paissandu to visit an old church that has historically (and contemporarily) been run but an important black catholic brotherhood. In the past there were power disputes over who controlled the physical space of the church, which manifested in a fight for the right to unlock the church doors. By the late 18th century this had escalated into a civil court case and the two sides would break into the church and change the locks on all the doors. The church itself is very interesting in that the plaza it is located on is a public space covered in graffiti, as are many places in São Paulo it is almost a constant war between the graffiti-ers/artists and the clean-up crews, but the inside of the church is clean and covered in bright frescos with many saint effigies. Also located on the plaza is an interesting statue called the Mãe Preta. The statue depicts the ‘black mammy’ figure in Brazilian history and is dedicated to the self-sacrifice of these women who raised and cared for children which were not their own.
After the plaza we walked through the rock and roll emporium which is a six story building filled with all sorts of alternative stores; music, tattoo shops, clothing and more. We decided not to spend much time there as we all wanted to go home and rest a bit before our third group dinner. Several of us met up on Paulista to grab a bus to Pinheiros where we were going to get Brazilian-Italian food at a restaurant called Gigio’s. The restaurant served the meal family style and we got to try two different pastas and had a choice of meat. Strangely, the restaurant also served rice and French fries with our meals, although there were some circulation problems and those dishes never made it over to our table. Dinner ended around 10:00 and several of us decided that we would go out that night to a local balada, or club, on Rua Agusta since there were general strikes scheduled for the next day and it was unlikely that we would have classes. Arron and Gab (our professor’s kids) had put us on the list for a local alternative club and we all hung out at their apartment before going out.
The night turned out to be really fun! We had a pretty big group; Isaiah, Victoria, Isabel, Angelika, Alison, Gab, Arron, Sami, Marcus and Daniel, and everyone had a good time dancing together. The club had a live band for that was playing some Brazilian music that no one in our group really knew (but it was good) interspersed with popular alternative-y American music. Everyone had a really good time!