Museu do Ipiranga (Museu Paulista)
Monumental 1890s palace on the Ipiranga brook telling the history of São Paulo and Brazilian independence.
The Museu Paulista of the University of São Paulo, universally known as the Museu do Ipiranga, stands on the bank of the Ipiranga brook where Pedro I is said to have declared Brazilian independence in 1822. The Italian architect Tommaso Gaudenzio Bezzi drew up the design in 1884 for a 123-metre eclectic palace that borrows from Renaissance and French models, and the building was completed in 1890. It opened as a museum on 7 September 1895, at first devoted to natural history before turning to the history of São Paulo.
Formal gardens laid out by the Belgian designer Arsenio Puttemans in 1909 and reworked by Reinaldo Dierberger in the 1920s descend from the main front. The museum closed in August 2013 because the building no longer met safety standards, and reopened in September 2022 after restoration and the addition of an underground wing that roughly doubled the exhibition area. Displays now run across nine long-term exhibitions; the best-known object remains Pedro Américo's large 1888 canvas Independência ou Morte.
Highlights
- Pedro Américo's 1888 canvas Independência ou Morte
- Eclectic palace of 1890 with a 123-metre main front
- Terraced French-style gardens begun in 1909
- Underground wing added during the 2013-2022 restoration
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