AD Classics: Esther Building / Álvaro Vital Brasil and Adhemar Marinho

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This article was originally published on February 1, 2018. To read about other iconic architectural projects, visit our Architecture Classics section.

With the exponential growth of São Paulo's population in the 1930s and the encouragement of the private construction market, several architects were invited to design buildings for diverse uses in the city center. Álvaro Vital Brasil and Adhemar Marinho were responsible for designing the Esther Building, an icon of the first phase of verticalization around Praça da República. [1]

In 1933, when the city surpassed the one-million-inhabitant mark, a considerable number of high-rise buildings began to be constructed. [2] As a result of urban demographic expansion and mass verticalization between the 1930s and 1940s, high rents and rising land values in the expanded downtown area triggered transformations in the residential and urban landscape. [3]

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Since high-rise buildings up to that point had mostly housed commercial and office programs, with vertical residential typologies restricted to the lower classes—such as social housing and tenements—the middle class resisted adapting to the idea of apartment living.

The building is situated on a 2,100-square-meter lot bounded by Ipiranga Avenue (front), Sete de Abril and Basílio da Gama Streets (sides), and Gabus Mendes Street (rear), rising directly in front of Praça da República.

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Commissioned in 1934 through a competition organized by the owners of the Esther Sugar Mill, based in the city of Campinas, the project envisioned a mixed-use building with commercial offices, retail stores, and apartments. In the proposal by Álvaro Vital Brasil and Adhemar Marinho—who had recently established an office in Rio de Janeiro and were known for developing diverse projects and typologies aligned with Corbusian principles—the architects chose to divide the overall program into two distinct blocks: the Esther Building and the Arthur Nogueira Building. This decision, prompted by the division of the lot for the creation of Gabus Mendes Street, fostered high-quality urban and spatial conditions.

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Urbanistically, the creation of distinct blocks and the strategic leveraging of building regulations allowed for a greater and smoother pedestrian flow, preventing any obstruction of circulation between the streets flanking the building. Meanwhile, from an architectural standpoint, this approach optimized natural light and ventilation for the housing units.

In the proposal, the 10-story building (with commercial spaces from the 1st to the 3rd floor and residences from the 4th to the 10th floor) contains approximately 8,000 square meters of built area distributed among 103 office and apartment units. It features diverse floor plans ranging from compact layouts to duplex apartments—becoming a pioneer in the design of the latter—along with open-air terrace spaces on the upper floors. This approach introduced a series of spatial innovations that successfully addressed the housing typology issues previously met with skepticism by the public.

Across its twelve levels—including a basement garage, a ground floor, and ten floors dedicated to commercial offices and apartments—vertical circulation is serviced by five elevators arranged linearly along the corridor that bisects the block horizontally. This is complemented by lateral, glass-enclosed cylindrical volumes housing the staircases, which flood the interior with diffused natural light. At the fourth floor, the recessed balconies create a play of solids and voids that breaks the established formalism. On the roof, alongside the penthouse level, the crowning structure also accommodates apartments.

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Structurally, it was a pioneer among commercial-use buildings in Brazil to utilize reinforced concrete [4], allowing for a free plan and a more optimal layout of spaces.

Influenced by the plastic-structural expressive quality championed by Le Corbusier, the building was the first in Brazil to implement rationalist principles (free plan, circular columns, ground floor on pilotis alongside galleries, stairs housed in a glazed cylindrical volume, roof garden, and ribbon windows). This preceded the Ministry of Education and Health (MEC) building—which was completed in 1936—even though the Esther was only officially finished in 1938. [5]

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In the physical expression of the facade, the symmetry that defines its geometric rigor, alongside abundant expanses of glass from the windows, balconies, and stairwells, frames a privileged view of the square.

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The building was listed as a heritage site in 1990 by the Council for the Defense of Historical, Archaeological, Artistic, and Touristic Heritage (CONDEPHAAT), fifteen years after the Sugar Mill relocated its headquarters from the building—a departure that had halted regular maintenance and led to a partial alteration of the original design. During the 1970s, with the dissolution of the Sociedade Predial Esther and the transfer of maintenance costs to the individual unit owners, the property fell into decline. Only after the heritage listing, which declared it "(...) an important landmark in the landscape and history of São Paulo architecture (...)" [6], did it return to its original use.

Notes
[1] (FIALHO, 2007, p.82).
[2] (LIRA, 2017, p.32).
[3] (LIRA, 2017, p.32).
[4] (FIALHO, 2007, p.82).
[5] (FIALHO, 2007, p.82).
[6] (SP Patrimônio)

Bibliography
Edifício Esther. Available at: <http://www.arquivo.arq.br/edificio-esther>. Accessed on: December 2, 2017.
Edifício Esther. Available at: <http://refugiosurbanos.com.br/casas-predios/edificio-esther/>. Accessed on: December 2, 2017.
Edifício Esther – Tombamento. Available at: <http://sppatrimonio.com.br/71-2/#!/loc=-23.543195978009013,-46.63879752159119,16>. Accessed on: December 2, 2017.
História do Edifício Esther – O primeiro prédio mixed do país. Available at: <http://www.marketingimob.com/2012/04/historia-imobiliaria-edificio-esther-o.html>. Accessed on: December 2, 2017.
FIALHO, Roberto Novelli. Edifícios de escritórios na cidade de São Paulo. PhD Dissertation. Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo - Universidade de São Paulo. 2007. P.82-83, 223.
LIRA, José. O visível e o invisível na Arquitetura Brasileira. São Paulo: DBA, 2017. P. 32-33
XAVIER, Alberto; LEMOS, Carlos; CORONA, Eduardo. Arquitetura moderna paulistana. São Paulo: Editora Pini, 1983. P.04