Sugar, Coffee, Real Estate Speculation.

We first crossed paths in 2018, as we prepared for a regional meeting of architecture students in the city of S?o Carlos (EREA). The purpose of the meeting was to be an open arena for students to discuss how (and to what extent) the University is inserted in the city surrounding it and what is the true impact students can have in the urban life happening around them. Both of us were group leaders at our respective universities and, because we were from the same city, it made sense to organize all departure and arrival logistics together. We however ended up never meeting in person up until the departure day: our first conversations consisted of WhatsApp texts and (a lot of) shared spreadsheets.

Once we arrived in S?o Carlos and finally had time to connect with each other beyond our onscreen interactions, we found a wide range of common interests: understanding students’ role in society; the need to engage in learning experiences beyond what is taught the classrooms; the political issues behind architecture and urbanism; and, most importantly, a shared admiration for everything that cities can offer to the societies we live in. From four days of intense dialogue, debates, and academic exchange, arose the amazing friendship that we have cultivated for almost two years now—and a valuable partnership that led us to engage in this project together.

The city of Campinas, where we were both born and raised, is still young in comparison to other metropolises. However, throughout its 245 years of existence, the city has already gone through significant urban development processes, embraced economic conquests and challenges, overcome slavery (while learning how to live with its scars), seen high buildings rise, witnessed several political conflict, and developed a fascinating culture. Sugar, coffee, real estate speculation. These pillars have largely influenced the Brazilian economy and politics over time and the very unique intersection of all three of these elements into architectural constructions is what brought the two buildings we have selected for this project to our attention. Brazil's sugar and coffee-based economic cycles, together with real estate speculation movements, connect these buildings to the city they are inserted in and to Brazilian history as a whole. In this sense, the architecture behind these constructions offer one of the richest historic narratives of the city of Campinas itself.

The story these buildings tell starts on the railways of our city. Despite being inactive today, the railroad tracks were a direct result of the early times of Brazilian industrialization, along with the exponential growth of the coffee economy. The first railroad in the country was inaugurated in 1854, with the purpose of taking the increasing volumes of coffee cargoes to Brazil's main port (Guanabara Bay) and optimize coffee exports. In order to keep up with the Brazilian new economic cycles, Campinas inaugurated its first train station in 1875, with thirteen operating lines. Offering the first interstate connection in the country and an alternative transportation for the rising middle class in a society that had been dominated by the coffee producer elites, its decline was unexpected. Looking at the building, the structure brought the intense use of metallic structures, a high ceiling, a lot of shops for their passengers, filled with art nouveau details, that still stand.

After periods of intense economic growth from manufacturing and other commodities, the Great Depression did not spare the Brazilian economy--especially given its high dependability on investments coming from the United States. Coffee production gradually (but rapidly) declined, with growing imbalance between supply and demand that could no longer keep Brazilian railroads sufficiently busy to compete with the then-rising automobile industry. In Campinas, the train station was ultimately closed in 1974. Even in the aftermath of the railroad collapse in Brazil, the structure of the Campinas train station and its relevance to the community have remained to this date, though now in the form of a cultural center and no longer as an operating rail station. It is precisely this resilience of its architectural and urban value in our contemporary city landscape that is so intriguing.

It is possible to point out that the former station and current cultural center affects the city community on three different dimensions. The first of them is territorial, as the rail tracks directly interfere in the city's landscape. The second dimension is urban planning, as the railroads shape the development of villages and neighborhoods around them, particularly when the working class starts to populate its surroundings and other economic activities follow this occupation. Finally, there is the architectural dimension, as prominent physical presence in the city landscape, especially when the original structures are preserved. These dimensions must always be interpreted and analyzed from a holistic perspective, seeing them as complementary in the process to understand the importance of a building like this. 

A former station worker, Arias, describes the end of the railway movement as an "announced fatality". Trains that brought traders with shopping bags slowly stopped running at regular hours, the cabins were increasingly empty. The trains had no political incentive, fighting against the cars that arrived massively from abroad, motivated by the government of the time. The end of the Campinas station was only one of the marks of the end of the railroad power. All that were left to keep those memories alive are the ones who could personally experience it and the building itself. 

With the end of its main functionality and the lack of maintenance, stations in Brazil have commonly become wasteland and degraded spaces. The abandonment of civil buildings is something usual to the contemporary city, which makes a potential historical heritage in a scenario of fear; and in our culture, we often see constructions like this turning into just another victim of real estate speculation. Gladly, what it is now called CIS Guanabara (Cultural Centre for Social Inclusion), had its activities and its historical value recognized so that, with the intervention of Condepaac (Campinas Council for the Protection of Cultural Heritage) and support of the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), it is now a place where history can be revisited. The former rail tracks and the main building, filled with art nouveau details, still bring together city dwellers, but now not as passengers: educational activities, artistic exhibitions and local fairs attract many to the historic site of Campinas’ former rail station, keeping it as effervescent as it was before.

However, reappropriating a building is not that simple and not always successful. Even when these spaces carry with them -- besides a constructive value -- a high symbolic and representative meaning, their history is not always properly taken into account. In cities of exponential growth, but untold historical formation, modernization and functionality surpass the history behind it to be told. The value then is often limited to the building, its structure, which becomes not relevant enough to occupy a significant area in the urban growth of the metropolis. This is the story of Casa Grande and Tulha.

Once again the context is sugar, coffee, real estate speculation. Tulha - name given to a storage space - was built at the end of the 1790s, the height of the sugar economy. Brazil was growing and its countryside was developing more and more, mainly with the help of the railways. Built of clay and intense slave labour, it was a high society property in a favored location near the city's water sources. The property remained in its family of origin, Sam Payo who, in the fall of the sugar economy, around 1830, started to insert itself into the coffee production, when the main house was built. The house was not the most virtuous at the time, but gradually became a patrimonial highlight when its rural surroundings were replaced by high concrete buildings, during the urbanization of the city while keeping its original roots. 

The Sam Payo family remained the owner of the land and buildings until, in 1978, architect Ant?nio da Costa Santos (Toninho) used his family's heritage to acquire Tulha, with the underline purpose of using the space as an object of study for his doctorate. In this case, Toninho's involvement is extremely important to place the importance of this civil building for the community. He has always valued the interaction between the city and the community. Toninho's studies were for a long time focused on the urbanization of slums as he defended the right of the city to the entire community. When he bought Tulha and saw its historical value, he fought to preserve it to the maximum, being one of the fundadores do Condepaac (Campinas Council for the Protection of Cultural Heritage) and turning Tulha the first building to be protected as part of the municipal historic heritage. 

The house became his own, where he lived with his wife and daughter. The walls, materials and all its external appearance were kept and until mid-2001 the doors were always open to students and interested in the story the building told. Students from architecture and history related courses constantly organized themselves for visits and could, together with the family, use the space for object of study. It was a pleasure for Toninho to keep alive through the clay walls the history of Campinas, but still unfulfilled with his actions, Toninho runs for mayor of Campinas. First in 1988 as vice-mayor and later, in 2000, he was elected mayor of the city. His intention when entering the political world was, once again, to offer the right to the city to everyone; "to build a socially equitable, economically viable and environmentally balanced city". Unfortunately, his speech contradicted the opinion of other political icons, especially while fighting the, previously mentioned, real estate speculation.

This civil building has brought together for years an intellectual and academic community, as well as promoting exchange of experiences with the low-income population -- at Toninho's request. However, Campinas awoke on September 11, 2001 with the news that its mayor had been murdered the night before. The news would bring the information from the worldwide tragedy of the 9/11 attacks along with the loss of a mayor who was so present to the community. And with his unexplained death, Tulha shut its doors to the public. Nineteen years have passed and now the house can only be visited when previously scheduled and with the authorization of Toninho's widow. The house lost many of its rights as a patrimony, mainly with the movement of reversing patrimony rights of monuments in order to make "better use" of the urban space. The house currently resists with voluntary financial support for its maintenance; the support of academics who are still enchanted by the history behind each tile and are willing to keep studying it; with the resources of Toninho's family who inherited his charm for the house. 

Toninho once said that the house stood as a token of social conflicts entangled with Campinas’ urban planning history and according to William Ceschi, the family lawyer, and Leo, the householder, Toninho's murder assured that opinion. The unfortunate difference between CIS Guanabara and Tulha is that many people cross Tulha's street without having a clue of what is behind the high walls. The community that lives and works around the house is already familiar with Leo watering the plants, his dogs taking a walk and William who daily goes and check the house. On the other side, you ask around to the public, most people don't even know what Tulha is, let alone what is behind its walls.

Much more than skyscrapers, architecture and structures that defy gravity, never before seen materials, we find the great value of a civil building to the community in the story it tells - especially in a society that treats the historical heritage with indifference. There are international documents that confirm this thought, such as the Venice Charter and the Athens Charter, that emphasize the importance of heritage as beyond the civil building, but its interaction with the community. CIS Guanabara carries out activities with the most diverse public: local small producers' fairs, theatre and music performances, workshops for children from low-income families. Tulha, before Toninho passed, was a stage for debates that would gather politicians and slum dwellers, studying groups of old constructive processes. 

Nowadays in Campinas, the history of the buildings blends in with the history of the city. The importance of the waterways, the sugar cane farms, the coffee producers is still present. The arrival of the railroads, the growth of the population by immigrants and the rural population still have their marks on the streets. We have already experienced several urban reforms, health planning, fight for the rights of the city, political conflicts and popular conquests. Many of these events are hidden around the city and it is up to the community to keep them alive. With that in mind, we see the importance of our studies. Works like these connect the unknown with the present. CIS Guanabara, which is today a public cultural center and an arena for social inclusion and community interaction tells stories that most of its young public is unaware of. And Tulha keeps alive the passion of an architect for the stories behind the building.