São Paulo Municipal Market

The Mercadão was built between 1928 and 1933 to a design from the office of Francisco de Paula Ramos de Azevedo: the engineer Felisberto Ranzini drew it up in 1925 and designed the façades, and it opened on 25 January 1933 as a wholesale and retail market for fruit, vegetables, cereals, meat and spices. It follows the model of the Central Market Hall in Berlin, a covered building with side turrets, in an eclectic style; its stained glass, by Conrado Sorgenicht Filho, who also made windows for São Paulo Cathedral, shows food production in the São Paulo region, unlike the sacred subjects of church glass. The 12,600 m² building has more than 290 stalls, and more than 1,500 people work there; the mezzanine built in 2004 holds the restaurants. The best-known dish is the mortadella sandwich with an exaggerated filling, which according to legend began in the 1960s as a joke among the staff of the Bar do Mané and was later copied by many bars in the city; the bolinho and pastel de bacalhau are the other favourites.

Background

The Municipal Market of São Paulo, known as the Mercadão, is a large public market in the city's historic centre, in the Mercado neighbourhood that takes its name from it, close to the Tamanduateí River on the old Várzea do Carmo floodplain. It came from the office of the architect Francisco Ramos de Azevedo, with a façade by Felisberto Ranzini, and opened on 25 January 1933 to sell fruit, vegetables, cereals, meat and spices wholesale and retail. Its stained glass, by Conrado Sorgenicht Filho, shows food production in the region. A renovation completed in 2004 added a 2,000 m² mezzanine with eight restaurants.

Source: Wikipedia, "Municipal Market of São Paulo"

What's there

• Sorgenicht stained glass - scenes of farming and livestock raising in the São Paulo region.
• The mortadella sandwich - the market's most popular dish, its filling piled high with mortadella.
• More than 290 stalls - fruit, vegetables, cereals, meat, spices, cheeses and hams on the ground floor.
• The façade - Felisberto Ranzini's Ionic and Doric columns framing large windows, with towers bearing the city's coat of arms.

When to go

All year. Two hours.

Good to know

The market receives about 50,000 visitors a week. The 2004 renovation restored the façade and the stained glass and replaced the floor with granite slabs; inside, the pillars are decorated with acanthus leaves, and some walls are tiled to half height with tiles from Belgium and Germany. The building is protected as a cultural asset of historical and architectural interest to the city.

Nearby

In a straight line, Dom Pedro II Park, laid out on the old Várzea do Carmo floodplain, is about 0.5 km to the south-southeast; the Pátio do Colégio is about 0.8 km and São Paulo Cathedral, which also has windows by Sorgenicht, about 1.2 km to the south-southwest; the Pinacoteca is about 0.9 km to the north-northwest and Luz Station about 1 km to the north-west, and the Liberdade district lies to the south.

Key facts