A Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Itu, arquiteto João Walter Toscano

Itu's School of Philosophy, Sciences and Literature inaugurates the extensive work of the architect João Walter Toscano. On the one hand, the school built in his hometown solves efficiently the program proposed, taking into account the climate and site in which it is inserted; On the other, it incorporates a series of formal attributes produced by proportions and relations among its elements that confer great environmental qualities to their spaces. The building is plenty of modern Brazilian architecture's fundamental attributes established a the end of the first half of the 20th century: the use of ramps and the definition of paths, pilotis, terraces, integration with the exuberant nature and controlled incidence of winds and sun. The L-shaped building consists of two overlapping linear volumes that fit efficiently to the irregular terrain where it is placed. Vertically, the organization of the school is quite elementary, but at the same time ingenious. The rooms' volume rises on pilotis, generating a covered space at ground level, which is surrounded by green areas. This area works as a court protected from the weather and constitutes an important place for events with great agglomeration of students. In Itu's School of Philosophy, Sciences and Literature, the classrooms - repetitive pieces of the architectonic program that multiply more in school project - constitute the primordial spaces of educational buildings, and accomplish excellent levels of visibility, acoustics, lighting, ventilation and flexibility. The capability of the School of Philosophy, Sciences and Literature to solve these environmental demands defines its quality and current relevance. What could be a functionalist building, where form directly follows function, constitutes an exemplary architecture in which the elements work perfectly, and the whole work assures some great aesthetic and formal qualities, based on the sensitivity and respect to the program but, fundamentally, to the environment where it is inserted.