A flexibilidade da planta livre moderna para novos usos

In the year of 2004, São Carlos City Hall acquired the old Grand Hotel, to transform it into the seat of its government. At that year, an end was put to the original use of the building, designed by architect Lucjan Korngold in 1953. Situated in the center of the city, Azouri Hotel could not compete with new economic hotels anymore. On the other hand, for several years up to now, the City Hall was trying to balance the dispersion of its activities within unfit buildings spread by the center of the town. The coincidence of these two moments allowed that the hotel did not turn out to be the first important vertical building to degrade in the city of São Carlos. Being its acquisition succeeded, the building’s reformulation to a new use introduced new difficulties. Before the reformulation design development, the City Hall decided to carry on a historical research, which would raise the hotel’s trajectory and would also supply the new design’s expert team with photos of the construction and with architectural, structural and complementary technical drawings. The main objective of the design, developed by Piratininga Associated Architects Office, was to transform the hotel into a public building, which is expressed through the alteration of its street relation. The typical floor had to suffer the most significant modifications, once the subdivisions of the hotel apartments are incompatible with the use of contemporary offices. Technical infrastructure, especially vertical circulation, also passed through modifications for the new use. Although alterations conceived for the adaptation to a new use have resulted in a new configuration of the building, the authors used the opportunity to rescue some situations of the original project that were lost in successive modifications carried through these 43 years. The following research and technical drawings set constitutes on an opportunity of reflection on the relevancy of historic patrimony preservation concepts for Modern Architecture buildings.