Ibirapuera Park

Ibirapuera Park
The Ibirapuera Park
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Type	Urban park
Location	São Paulo Brazil
Area	545 acres (221 ha)
Created	1954
Status	Open all year

Ibirapuera Park (Portuguese: Parque Ibirapuera) is a major urban park in São Paulo, Brazil. It has a large area for leisure, jogging and walking, as well a vivid cultural scene with museums and a music hall. Its importance to São Paulo is often comparable to that of Central Park to New York City, Golden Gate Park to San Francisco, or Ueno Park to Tokyo. Ibirapuera is one of South America's largest city parks, together with Chapultepec Park, in Mexico City and Simón Bolívar Park in Bogota.

History

Inaugurated in 1954 for the 400th anniversary of the city, with buildings designed by famous architect Oscar Niemeyer and landscape by agronomist Otávio Agusto de Teixeira Mendes, Ibirapuera Park covers an area of almost 2 square kilometres (0.77 sq mi). It is the second largest park in the city. Admission is free.

Features

Oscar Niemeyer, Auditório, Oca, Bienal

The park complex contains several buildings, most of them designed by Oscar Niemeyer. They include:

• The Marquise ("marquee") is a large construction that links Bienal, Auditório Ibirapuera and Oca.;
• The Cicillo Matarazzo Pavilion is spacious building that host the São Paulo Art Biennial and the São Paulo Fashion Week;
• The Manoel da Nóbrega Pavilion, which until 1992 was the city hall and now houses the "Museu Afro Brasil".
• The Lucas Nogueira Garcez Pavilion, formerly known as "Palácio das Exposições"("Expositions Palace") and now known as the Oca ("hut", given its round shape), which harbors both the Museu da Aeronáutica ("Air Force Museum") and the Museu do Folclore ("Folklore Museum");
• The Armando de Arruda Pereira Pavilion, home for the Prodam - Companhia de Processamento de Dados do Município ("Municipal Data Processing Company");
• The Palácio da Agricultura ("Agriculture Palace"), home of Detran, municipal transit department. The building was originally intended to harbor the municipal agriculture department;
• The Planetarium and Municipal Astrophysics School. The Planetarium building which is shaped like a flying saucer. It was the first Planetarium in the Southern Hemisphere and has a dome which is 20 meters in diameter. The German projection machine shows the sky above São Paulo from dusk to dawn. During the projection a professional astronomer explains the most famous stars and constellations as well as the movements of the Earth and other planets;

Gandhi, Praça Túlio Fontoura Sculpture by Gautam Pal

• The Ibirapuera Gymnasium;
• The Japanese Pavilion
• The Monumento às Bandeiras
• The Ibirapuera Auditorium, controversial building that was on the original Niemeyer plan, but was only built recently.
• The Obelisk of São Paulo, symbol of the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932
• A statue of Pedro Alvares Cabral that alleges "Brazilians owe everything to Portugal."

• The Soccer courts, popularly known as "Serie A" and "Serie B" referring to the divisions of soccer competitiveness related to each court. By far it is the greatest cultural expression of Brazilian soccer inside the park.

Panorama of the lake in Ibirapuera Park.

References

• Ibirapuera: parque metropolitano (1926-1954)

External links

• Ibirapuera Park website..
• Auditório Ibirapuera
• Museum of Contemporary Art