Villa-Lobos State Park
| Villa-Lobos State Park | |
|---|---|
 View towards Marginal Pinheiros | |
 | |
| Nearest city | São Paulo |
| Area | 732,000 square metres (7,880,000 sq ft)[1] |
| Created | 1989 |
| Website | www |
Villa-Lobos State Park is a park in São Paulo, Brazil. It is named after composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and is located next to Pinheiros River.
Location
It is located the Alto de Pinheiros district in São Paulo.[1]
History
In the late 1980s the area where the park is now located was used as a rubbish tip. The western area was used by the Companhia de Entrepostos e Armazéns Gerais do Estado de São Paulo (Company of Warehouses and General Warehouses of the State of São Paulo, CEAGESP) for their garbage disposal, and around 80 families were scavenging for food and packaging there. The central part was used as a waste dump for civil construction, and the eastern part was used to hold dredged material from the Pinheiros river.[1]
The first studies to turn the area into a park were carried out in 1987 as part of the centenary of Heitor Villa-Lobos's birth. State decrees allocated 732,000 square metres (7,880,000 sq ft) to create the park, dedicated to leisure, culture and sport. The Departamento de Águas e Energia Elétrica (Department of Water and Electric Power, DAEE) started to clear the site in 1989, removing the families that were living there, and 500,000 cubic metres (18,000,000 cu ft) of debris that was larger than 1 metre (3.3 ft) diameter. The site was landscaped by moving 2,000,000 cubic metres (71,000,000 cu ft) of earth. The Boaçava creek, which runs through the site, was channelized.[1]
The new park was designed by Décio Tozzi, with a "music city" theme.[1]
The administration of the park was changed in January 2004 to the Secretaria do Meio Ambiente (State Department of Environment, SMA) of São Paulo state, with emergency maintenance carried out at the park in the same year, and the possibility of extending the park was started to be investigated.[1] In 2011 plans were announced to expand the park by 20% by incorporating a 123,000 square metres (1,320,000 sq ft) area currently used for the construction of Line 4 of the São Paulo Metro.[2]
Features
The park has:
- Bird nursery[1]
- Musical island[1]
- Uirapuru tour[1]
- Auditoriums[1]
- Opera Theater[1]
- Center of Musical Coexistence[1]
- Hiking trails[1]
- Playgrounds[1]
- Shops[1]
- Exhibition building for Ballet and Music Schools, including instrument manufacture and repair workshops[1]
- Villa Ambiental, an environmental education space[1]
- Park administration headquarters[1]
- 1st Company of the 23rd Military Police Battalion headquarters[1]
- Circuito das Arvores[1]
- Around 37,000 native trees[1]
- Orquidário Ruth Cardoso[1]
- Audio playback of sounds by Heitor Villa-Lobos[1]