Multicolored earthenware and plates inlaid in stone: the “little castle” built in a favela in Sao Paulo over four decades earned Estevao Silva da Conceiçao the nickname “Brazilian Gaudí”.
Like the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona’s emblematic basilica designed by the famous Catalan architect and under construction for more than 140 years, this colorful four-story building built on the hillside is an unfinished work.
“I’ve been doing this for 39 years, it’s my life’s work. I don’t know if I’ll finish it before I die, only God knows,” the former mason and gardener confided to AFP 67 years old.
Nicknamed “Castelinho” (small castle) by the inhabitants of the Paraisopolis favela, this building with its tortuous curves has become a tourist attraction for its striking resemblance to another famous work by Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926), Park Güell.
And yet, the Brazilian claims to have never heard of the Catalan genius before starting to build his castle on a plot of barely 60 m2 in this poor neighborhood where more than 100,000 inhabitants live.
“I made a work that resembles that of Gaudí without copying him. It just came out of my mind,” he assures.
“I never studied, but I managed to create a work of art,” says this black man with a thick salt-and-pepper mustache.
– Trip to Barcelona –
The resemblance of “Castelinho” to Gaudí’s style was discovered by a student at the beginning of this century.
The story of Estevao Silva da Conceiçao was told in the documentary “Gaudí in the Favela”, by filmmaker Sergio Oksman, released in 2002. During filming, the previous year, the former mason went to Barcelona to know the works of the architect to whom he is compared.
The notoriety gained from the film has transformed the place into a tourist site and the visit currently costs around five euros.
“There are so many things to see, every little corner is full of details to observe,” describes Celly Monteiro Mendes, 24, a tourist from Manaus, in the Brazilian Amazon.
Once through the entrance decorated with multicolored painted plates and overhung by shrubs, visitors access a cave-like room, the starting point of a maze of galleries with low ceilings, with narrow staircases leading from one floor to another.
The cement walls covered with small brown pebbles are decorated with hundreds of objects of all kinds: plastic toys, cups, old telephones, masks, coins, clock gears and other hardware. Some of these objects were given to him by visitors.
– Enchanted garden –
Born in the state of Bahia (north-east), the “Brazilian Gaudí” arrived in 1977 in Sao Paulo, where he worked notably as a mason and gardener.
In 1985, he bought land to build his house in Paraisopolis and let his imagination run wild.
“I wanted to have a garden, to do something different. I didn’t think it would turn into a world-famous work of art resembling what Gaudi did, otherwise I would have taken it even higher” , he explains.
“I did it for myself, and it became a tourist spot,” summarizes Estevao Silva da Conceiçao.
He started by planting a rose garden and built a metal structure around it, but the plants grew too quickly.
Tired of raking leaves, the gardener preferred to remove all the vegetation and covered the metal structure with cement, laying the foundations of his castle.
The walls were covered with stones “to cool” the place and he added a broken plate that he had on hand. The first of hundreds of objects that now make up his work.
The plants have reappeared on the last of the four floors, in the open air, where we can hear the birds singing while observing Brazilian inequalities from above: the shacks of the favela in the foreground and the imposing buildings of the chic Morumbi district in the far.
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