Ricerc@Sapienza

A Locus Amoenus in São Paulo. The Nature of the Minhocão This text explores the story of the Minhocão, the elevated street named after President Artur da Costa e Silva, in the city of são Paulo, brazil. this unique urban planning and social experiment created an infrastructure with a double function and a double life: a vehicular artery during the working week and space for strolling and leisure (to some degree incongruous given its scale and that of other similar situations) on weekends and holidays. because this infrastructure was neither created nor equipped to be used as a linear pedestrian park, and despite the total lack of any commitment from local government, its unexpected trans-formation each week depends less on political will than on the intense spontaneous participation of residents, on their diverse way of perceiving and brining it alive. their actions resemble a sort of weekly victory of the slow over the fast, of collective sharing over utilitarian individualism. This condition makes the street an example of participatory social urbanism, founded on the reappropriation of public spaces by the community. as an experiment in urban democracy it is almost without precedent; this for the fact that only the deeply rooted and constant desire of the local population could have initially created it, and guaranteed it would last over time.