Higienópolis

Consolação
District of the city of São Paulo
Country	Brazil
State	São Paulo
District	Consolação (district of São Paulo)
Government
• Type	Subprefecture
• Subprefect	Amauri Luiz Pastorello
Area
• Total	3.7 km2 (1.4 sq mi)
Population (2010)
• Total	57,365
• Density	15,504/km2 (40,160/sq mi)
HDI	0.950 –high
Website	Subprefecture of Sé

Consolação (Portuguese pronunciation: [kõsolaˈsɐ̃w̃]) is a district in the central part of the city of São Paulo, Brazil. It belongs to the subprefecture of Sé. The district is largely residential, and contains many large apartment buildings and condominiums. It is also known for its prominent cultural institutions. The region has been populated since the 16th century, and is known for its buildings in the style of São Paulo Modern Architecture.

Originally, the region of the city which comprises today's Consolação was inhabited by the Jesuits, being called "Sesmaria of Pacaembu." It remained thus until the beginning of the 20th century when it was converted into a neighborhood for the highest class of paulistanos. It was attractive due to its high elevation, wide open streets and an array of woody plants. Also, being far from the Luz train station, and out of the old city center, it was much quieter and cleaner, giving it the name of Higienópolis, "City of Hygiene", which names also an Avenue in the district.

Today, the neighborhood has managed to keep some of the large homes of the past, though little remains of the vast area and giant mansions that once dominated the landscape. A prime example is a building which once was the art-nouveau mansion of the Prado family, near the western end of Angelica Avenue, which today houses the graduate and post-graduate courses of the University of São Paulo's College of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU).

It was in the 1950s that the neighborhood as it is today started to rise from the mansions of the past. Large real estate investments in the area caused the demolition of many of the large mansions and houses by which the neighbourhood was characterized. When this happened, the area became a melting pot of the new, modern architecture and large buildings, and the old elegant architecture of the earlier eras.

In the period between 1970 and 1990, the area was still a place where the wealthy lived to get away from the hustle and bustle of the center of the city, and still contained much of its earlier social segregation.

Today the district is still well known for the large upper class that lives in the area. It managed to keep its social status during the rapid growth of the city, a time when many places such as Campos Elíseos began to shelter a broader range of social classes. Higienópolis contains an enormous amount of large apartment buildings, and very few, if any, houses with permanent residency. Some buildings are multi-purpose, but there are very few large buildings that serve any other purpose other than the residential.

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Wikipedia