[THE GREATEST, Billie Eillish]
There’s no place like São Paolo- what an incredible city. It now sits at #2 in my favorite all time cities and that’s quite the achievement. I was tiraded by the various random Brazilians I met after I booked this trip that I needed to visit Rio – of which I followed the universe and the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum was indeed necessary- but I had a feeling I would fall in love with São Paolo and indeed I did.
I was at an all time low, struggling truly when I decided to follow the advice from Peak Performance and channeled that state into action and do something new. I searched for Brazil and art conference and that October was the Biennial – and this followed by a search for Brazil and music festival and that October was also Tomorrowland. All São Paolo – and when Kölsch was listed, the universe could not be yelling at me any louder about being on the path ahead. I’ve written before about how well we are listening – it is like with anything else something that needs great training.
After a beautiful time at Tomorrowland, I embarked out early and quietly alone as the agenda for São Paolo was simply too massive to drag my crew to in its entirety. The furthest away was Pinacoteca – the city is massive and stereotypically traffic ridden – so let’s start with what Gemini 3.1 Pro (dated Feb 26, 2026) has to say:
The Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (often simply called “A Pina”) is not just one of the most important art museums in Brazil; it is arguably one of the most beautiful and compelling cultural spaces in South America. Founded in 1905, it is the oldest art museum in São Paulo.
Driving across the city, I took the city in with wide eyes, as if somehow if I didn’t blink I would be able to see it all. I let the city soak in, discovering new inner expanses of my own humility. But there’s a story on this drive that channeled directly to my experience in India about how simple living life can be- it is in the act of caring and the act of giving selflessly without expectation of return. I stared out the window as we paused in the traffic, only for me to witness a scene of a man pulling a cart with his dog and pausing to give a bottle of water to a man with even less. It is in this generosity that there was a spark of what that life is – even without material and without money, there was still giving. I think we forget in the rush of technology how to behave towards each other.
A Pina, as I now know it’s colloquially called I just learned, stunned me. Where was all this depth of art and expression that I was so uneducated about? Immediately I felt a joy of how many stories there were to learn, how the human need for expression expanded far and beyond and what skill there was to admire. I just kept saying to myself “I know nothing”.
A Pina is another wonderful example of architecture being reused and reinvented as our needs change. The preservation of these materials give a kind of credit to the space. I love a good atrium and this entire building is effectively a covered one where the natural light washes across the central spaces. Designed by Paulo Mendes da Rocha (Gemini 3.1 Pro (dated Feb 28, 2026):
While Oscar Niemeyer was all about the “curve of the senses,” Mendes da Rocha was about the rigor of the structure.
The original building, designed by Ramos de Azevedo in 1895, was never fully finished; it featured exposed brick walls and internal courtyards that were open to the sky, leaving the interior vulnerable to the elements.
Mendes da Rocha gutted the interior, added metal walkways, and covered the internal courtyards with glass skylights, blending the old world with industrial modernity. He famously chose not to plaster the walls. He left the original red brick exposed, celebrating the “unfinished” nature of the building- often described as “industrial-chic” or “tectonic.”
He worked on this project in the late 1990s (completed in 1998) alongside Eduardo Colonelli and Weliton Ricoy Torres.
The crazy thing was despite all my rigorous planning, I still rarely actually want to know too much about the spaces I select to visit preferring a personal first hand experience. I had no idea what was to come on this trip. São Paolo is a place of many layers- geographically, politically, artistically and of course, architecturally. Like London, my #1 favorite city.
Saudade is a specifically Brazilian Portuguese word that can be roughly defined as a feeling of melancholy, nostalgia or yearning for something that is beloved but not present. I had forgotten about this word that I learned during this travel until I read about it as the best way to describe the Tiny Desk performance by Billie Eillish. I don’t listen to popular music but by chance, I listened to this and since then cannot stop playing it. Just like being in São Paolo felt like a place I had always been – like in many past lives and the current one finally having caught up not a moment too late – this word saudade captures the feeling of how I have always been but never knew.
At A Pina, in these moments of this particular visit, I recall saudade so clearly – and so to my friends on this trip and to São Paolo, I say “Longe dos olhos, perto do coração. Você sempre vai estar aqui. Até um dia.” Gemini 3.1 Pro (dated Feb 26, 2026)
Address: Praça da Luz, 2 – Luz, São Paulo – SP, 01120-010, Brazil
Website: CASACOR write up
Artwork
ofallthespaces 