Centro Cultural São Paulo

With its almost 50.000 square meters of space, the Centro Cultural São Paulo (CCSP) is perhaps one of the most impressive multidisciplinary cultural institutions in South America. At the time it was built, it was one of the first multidisciplinary cultural spaces in Brazil, following a new institutional trend that has as reference the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Inaugurated in 1982, it has being fostering theater, dance and music programs and projects, visual arts exhibitions, cinema and video screenings, workshops, debates and courses. Besides, the CCSP is the keeper and promoter of expressive public collections that belong to the city of São Paulo: the City Art Collection, the Mário de Andrade´s Folkloric Research Mission, the old Information and Documentation Department (IDART), one of Brazilians first Contemporary Art Institutes, the Multimedia Files, which was created by IDART more than 30 years ago and private collections from artists and intellectuals. Another important presence in this gigantic cultural structure is a set of libraries located in an area of eleven thousand square meters. This set is composed by a General Library, an Art Library, a Braille Library, a Comics Library and also the Audio Library, the Oneyda Alvarenga Discotheque with its more than 70.000 longplays.

The complete construction of the building, as it was predicted in the original project, was never concluded. In spite of it, the CCSP has settled as a pole of support to experimental productions, a place where artists can meet, a space of great coexistence. The project of the architects Luiz Benedito Telles and Eurico Prado Lopes gently integrates the building in the local topography. With no barriers, it invites whoever passes by to come in.

Located in a strategic spot in São Paulo, near important avenues and next to two subway stations, the CCSP opens widely to the city, a comfortable and democratic space that invites people to use it in an extensive and continuous way. Some 70 thousand people pass through the Centro each month, and they enjoy it in different ways. Its varied range of activities, offered for free or for low prices, attracts many kinds of public, which makes the Centro Cultural São Paulo one of the most democratic spaces in the city. In 2006, it received 700 thousand visitors, a number comparable to the biggest museums and cultural centers in the world.