The Cultural Association Videobrasil is a cultural institution that welcomes a growing collection of works and publications that essentially gathers works of the geopolitical South of the world (Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia, Middle East). Videoart classics, self-productions, and a vast collection of publications about art. This collection has been gathered since the first edition of the Sesc Videobrasil’s Festival of Contemporary Art, in 1983. It also harbors expositions, schedules of movies, seminars, workshops, artistic residences and labs of creation and reflection.

This collection now presents itself available to the public, in its new headquarters.

The new headquarters of the Cultural Association Videobrasil, the VB Hangar, occupies the same old hangar in Vila Leopoldina but with the inclusion of a wide expositive space. The new house welcomes the actions of the association turned to the permanent activation of the works in its collection and the artists of this international panorama and like that it initiates a new cycle of its history, more inserted and present in the scenario of arts in São Paulo.

The old industrial hangar, built initially to harbor a warehouse, was recycled with little interventions and low cost. The main intervention consisted in assuring maximum flexibility reusing the potential of a big space opened and versatile for the various activities of Videobrasil.

The general appearance was kept in its original state, with its characteristic rusticity and the construction in pre-molded concrete.

The walls of the expositive space were coated up until 4,20m, with a smoother paste, painted in white to support the expositions and projections. Above this “civilized” high the elements of concrete found were kept in its raw state, without any treatment. A big metallic grid is suspended, in an adequate high of 5,50m above the expositive area to support the installations and illumination, allowing total flexibility for the various frequent installations in the expositions of Videobrasil.

The offices and administrative sectors of Videobrasil are housed in a pre-existent internal structure, in two pavements. In the upper part are the working areas of the team. On this volume, it’s housed the areas where the collection is kept, a library with 3200 titles and a video library with 1300 items that are available for reading, for the visitors to have a look and also a room for the most frequent projections. All of these spaces are contiguous and opened to the great area of the expositions.

The VB Hangar still counts with a café for the visitors, installed in a construction placed at the back of the set.

A small store of products and editions connected to Videobrasil’s activities, placed at the lateral balcony of the entrance, that was specially projected. Thought as a wooden box of approximately 3x2m, built with wooden boards of reforestation, this box opens in three laterals, through the doors/shelves and a small counter, transforming itself in a little store during the day in the VB Hangar. At night, these panels recollect themselves in its box shape, properly protecting its content.

The front’s big retreat, 10 m, originally a courtyard of maneuvers of the old hangar, was transformed in a yard, housed in big boxes of masonry with fertile earth under a existent floor. The unevenness of the loading and unloading dock of the hangar with this yard was attenuated with a bleacher and stairs in wooden deck. This way, all of the hangar’s front can open in big curling doors, allowing connection to the yard, available space for presentations and open air events.

Architecture: Gui Paoliello

Location: Vila Leopoldina, São Paulo – SP, Brasil

Area: 1.345 m²

Year: 2014 – 2015

Colaborators: Raquel Migueis Gonçalves e Paulo Victor Almeida

Work Management: Antonio Skaf (Ecco)

Coordination in Gantry: Gustavo Medlam

Structural Projects: Osmar Baptista Antunes (OBA)

Electrical Installations: Eletro Técnica Nissei

Civil Work’s Execution: NRC Construções e Reformas

Lighting: Pedro Farkas

Landscape: André Paoliello

Masonry: Roberval Layus, Marcenaria Segmento e Luiz Augusto de Alencar Gonçalves (GUGA)

Illumination Grid: Cinecidade Locações e Produções