Fab 40: Culture Complex, Sao Paolo

Brazil

Herzog & de Meuron's latest project is an ambitious and elegant addition to Brazil’s bustling megatropolis, consolidating key institutions from around Latin America’s largest cultural district into one vast, interconnected space. The complex will add a new 1740-seat dance theatre, a 400-seat experimental theatre, dance and music schools, and a library and museum dedicated to the performing arts.

See more of the project

At night, together with its vertical glass walls, the structure will form a luminescent tapestry across central São Paulo, and potentially be the catalyst for its rebirth. Local officials are looking to the project to bring the area back from the fringe, which may be a tall order for a cultural campus, but if anyone has proven the place-making power of architecture it’s Herzog & de Meuron. The project is scheduled for completion in 2014.

19 October 2009 | Architecture