Soho House has opened its first foothold in South America, occupying a historic corner of Brazil’s mega-metropolis São Paulo. The latest outpost for the UK-based members’ club (with outposts from New York to Mumbai) is no less than the city’s most ambitious cultural hub, Cidade Matarazzo – two newly developed blocks of hospitality, retail, wellness, offices and cultural spaces shaped from ten buildings that served as a hospital for most of the 20th century.
Soho House São Paulo
The familiar Soho House format integrates effortlessly into Cidade Matarazzo’s 100-year heritage. The latest evolution of Nick Jones’ original creative coworking concept undoubtedly brings some international allure to Brazil’s business capital at a time when the world’s eighth-largest economy is rediscovering some of the brio that made it one of the hottest investment locations in the world at the turn of the last decade.
The house’s 32 bedrooms, cosy sitting rooms, lounges and games room wrap themselves around a central patio – an integral part of Matarazzo’s Italianate architecture – embracing the arched windows and scalloped balconies throughout to let light flood the space. The brand’s well-oiled design team, steered on this occasion by Danielle Vourals, has enrolled support from a glittering cast of Brazilian furniture designers and contemporary artists to adapt Soho House’s signature interior style to Brazil’s exuberant, tropical culture.
The delicate details and patterns of the hand-painted tiles by Ceramica Antigua, along with marble surfaces, and hand-blown lamps by Espaço Zero that light up the bathrooms, highlight the insouciance of the untouched walls, which put the scars of the former hospital on full display. Contemporary artworks by a collection of 60 artists born, based, or trained in Brazil add plenty of colour and humour to the building’s colonial skeleton.
Playful works, including a mural for leg lovers conceptualised by Marcelo Cipis and other colourful works by the likes of Alexandre Da Cunha, Antonio Tarsis, Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro, Jaime Lauriano, Larissa de Souza, Leda Catunda, Paulo Nimer Pjota, Marina Perez Simão, Nazareth Pacheco and Yuli Yamagata, span the main bar. Meanwhile, hardwood cabinets and comfy armchairs are courtesy of a dozen celebrated Brazilian furniture designers.
Lounges boast midcentury modern Brazilian armchairs by Sergio Rodrigues, Jean Gallon, Jorge Zalszupin and Percival Lafer, which make for the most comfortable of caipiriña-fuelled journeys back through Brazil’s rich cultural history to Matarazzo’s 1904 origin. The floors and the eaves upstairs use reclaimed wood rescued from the hospital. Similarly, the 1960s geometric patterned floors in the rooms and suites are made from Canela wood, reclaimed from abandoned barns in south Brazil.
More than 10,000 native plant species have been introduced or preserved throughout the property, including a handful of 200-year-old trees that stretch back in time beyond the vertiginous rise of São Paulo’s urban jungle, pumping oxygen into the space and creating a lush link to Brazil’s brilliant biodiversity. A bar and pool area on the roof and a gym with exercise rooms are scheduled to open on the upper floors of adjacent buildings later this year.
Soho House São Paulo is located at R. São Carlos do Pinhal, 764 - Bela Vista, São Paulo, 01332-000, Brazil, sohohouse.com
