Parque do Ibirapuera

The Parque do Ibirapuera was designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer and landscape artist Roberto Burle Marx for the city’s fourth centenary in 1954. It is the largest of the very few green spaces in central São Paulo and its shady woodlands, lawns and lakes offer a breath of fresher air in a city that has only 4.6 sq m of vegetation per inhabitant. The park is also home to a number of museums and monuments and some striking Oscar Niemeyer buildings that were designed in the 1950s but are still being built today. These include the Oca (Portão 3, open for exhibitions), a brilliant white polished concrete dome, built in homage to an indigenous Brazilian roundhouse. It stages major international art exhibitions and has an auditorium shaped like a giant wedge. The Bienal buildings (Portão 3, open for exhibitions), are also by Niemeyer and house the city’s flagship fashion and art events: the twice yearly São Paulo fashion week and the Art Biennial, the most important events of their kind in the southern hemisphere.

A sculpture garden separates the Bienal from the Oca; this garden is watched over by O Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM) (Portão 3, T011-5549 9688, http://www.mam.org.br, Tue, Wed, Fri 1200-1800, Thu 1200-2200, Sat and Sun 1000-1800, US$2). This small museum showcases the best Brazilian contemporary art in temporary exhibitions. There is always something worth seeing and the gallery has an excellent restaurant. MAM is linked by a covered walkway to the Museu Afro-Brasil (Portão 10, T011-5579 0593, www.museuafro brasil.com.br, Wed-Sun 1000-1800, free), which lies inside Niemeyer’s spectacular, stilted Pavilhão Manoel da Nobrega building and devotes more than 12,000 sq m to a celebration of black Brazilian culture with regular films, music, dance, and theatrical events.

A few hundred metres to the west of here, on the shores of the artificial lake, the Planetário e Museu de Astronomia (Planetarium) (Portão 10, T011-5575 5206, Sat and Sun 1200-1800, US$5), was restored in 2006 and is now one of the most impressive in Latin America. Shows are in Portuguese.

Less than 100 m to the south, is the Pavilhão Japonês (Portão 10, T011-5573 6453, Sat and Sun 1000-1700, free except for exhibitions). The building and gardens were designed in strict adherence to Japanese aesthetic principles, and materials were imported from Japan. The pavilion on the lower floor has an exhibition space devoted to Japanese-Brazilian and Japanese culture and a traditional Japanese tearoom upstairs.

The park also has a running track, football pitches and hosts regular concerts on Sundays. Those seeking something quieter on a Sunday can borrow a book from the portable library and read it in the shade of the Bosque da Leitura or ‘reading wood’. Bicycles can be hired in the park (US$3 per hour).

Ibirapuera also has a few monuments of note. O Monumento as Bandeiras, which sits on the northern edge of the park, is a brutalist tribute to the marauding and bloodthirsty slave traders or bandeirantes who opened up the interior of Brazil. It was created by Brazil’s foremost 20th-century sculptor, Victor Brecheret. The Obelisco aos Héroes de 32, on the eastern edge of the park, is a monumental Cleopatra’s needle built in honour of the Paulistano rebels who died in 1932 when the dictator Getúlio Vargas crushed resistance to his Estado Novo regime....read more