Flying over the coasts of the South, cities turn into little webs of lights, separated by vast spaces of darkness. Between the Rio de la Plata and the end of Brazil’s pampas, one can only distinguish brief breathes of life, surrounded by a wonderful void.
But this serene cadence is broken when one reaches São Paulo. From the shores to the interior of the continent, lights extend themselves, cover the view, entirely defeat darkness. The web becomes limitless, unnerving, and its lines seem to go on forever.
***
It is stunning to compare old drawings of São Paulo to the monster of a city that it has become. Almost nothing remains of the sleepy town of the past: that peace has been lost forever.
In 1554, a group of jesuits founded a Mission buried within the jungle, far from the coast and the Portuguese colonists. Among the Tupinamba villages, on a hill standing between the Anhangabaú and Tamanduateí rivers, they built a little College. There, they would spend their time evangelizing, translating psalms and keeping a correspondence with their brothers around the World.
Today, the old, restored temple holds manuscripts in its crypts, and its gardens still keeps a serene atmosphere. But the jesuit plaza is but a little hill in a busy city, and its rivers have become filthy water canalss. São Paulo has almost reached the sea, surrounding the old port of São Vicente, and burying the mountains under its buildings.
The Jesuits’ solitude only lasted for a few years. Their secret settlement was discovered by the bandeirantes, groups of ambitious hunters for slaves and gold, who turned the place into a starting point for their expeditions. For centuries, São Paulo was buried in darkness, turned into a port for these pirates of the jungles.
Near to the beautiful Ibirapuera park, a gigantic monument rises to the glory of the bandeirantes. It portrays these slavers on horseback, guiding submissive figures that are meant to represent all races of the world. A strange celebration of their “adventurous” spirit: the unstoppable prepotency that helped expand Brazil’s borders.
Old Paulistanos still remember when this little park surrounded by traffic was but a swamp on the outskirts of the city. Indeed, barely a century ago, the town of São Paulo lived through an explosion that submersed it into madness.
In 1900, it was already a respected land, producing fine crops of law students and coffee. Past centuries had treated it well: it had become an important and prosperous town, that elected presidents and received hundreds of migrants. However, when its rich families sowed factories and railways, an unstoppable race started.
In a few years, São Paulo was demolished and rebuilt, consuming workers from every country in the world, mixing its portuguese language with the italian, the arab and the japanese of its immigrants.
It was worthless to displace the city centre, to open new avenues and to form new parks: the city grew wherever it wanted, and the jungle of the Tupinambas was pushed further away.
In 1922, the young artists of the modernist movement announced that they had become cannibals, claiming that Brazil would grow only if it devoured other cultures, just like São Paulo was tirelessly doing. While colonial squares lay in agony, young poet Mario de Andrade lost his Macunaíma in the concrete jungle.
10 years later, the Paulistas sent troops and planes to assault Rio de Janeiro and expel mighty president Vargas.
Their weapons barely crossed the Paraíba valley, and their war trenches shut down after a year, but the city left a lasting memory in Brazil. São Paulo lived in its own universe, and was ruled by its own unstoppable energy.
***
A fine drizzle poured over the viaduto do chá, a metallic walkway over the Vale Anhangabaú, a long garden surrounded by skyscrapers. Among the multitude, this little promenade was but a trace of a village that no longer exists.
Old São Paulo is barely a triangle of bridges, surrounded by some palaces and churches that are completely dwarfed by skyscrapers. There is something truly saddening to this landscape of demolished homes. Among the buildings that still stand, the restored Sé Cathedral is almost insulting in its ugliness.
To walk through the city centre is to imagine the final traces of a jungle that faded away ages ago. It is said that 60 years ago, one could still hear the lingua geral in some corners of the city. That language used to be spoken all over Brazil by settlers and natives alike: its speakers now have long faded into oblivion.
The São Francisco Faculty keeps on forming lawyers, and its dusty floors seem to remain untouchable. In front of the building, a city square is permanently covered with huts and wooden walls, and students joyfully give out coloured pamphlets. The surrounding buildings are covered in graffiti, that are permanently reshaped by artists eager for renewal.
A few meters away from the sad church of São Bento, the rua 25 de Março is a sea of vendors and lost tourists, where it is impossible to feel alone. Some meters away from the Jesuit College, the Luz train station and its exuberant parks seem to welcome us to a city that no longer starts there, and that is surrounded by decaying highways and bridges.
These clashes of colours and intentions cover the entirety of São Paulo, even in its most remote corners.
In the dusty neighborhood of Brás, hidden behind rusty factories and abandoned cranes, a lovely hostel still keeps the clothes and luggages of the migrants that used to be transferred from there to the countryside. Sometimes, an old steam train still passes through the rails.
In Ibirapuera park, the futuristic buildings that dot its garden are filled with sculptures and paintings every two years, in a grandiose Biennale. Then, its white corridors and platforms empty themselves of skaters and welcome artists the world over.
In a Northern Favela, a group of actors sing the tale of a buried river, under the confused looks of vendors and wanderers. Sometimes, in a building surrounded by viaducts, poetry groups reunite to recite their new chants.
There’s the old cliché that São Paulo has no soul; that it only breeds sad, hurried people.
That is a gross misunderstanding. It is merely a city that fervently searches for poetry among the concrete.