Edifício Copan

The Copan Building is a huge apartment building in downtown São Paulo, Brazil, at 200 Avenida Ipiranga. It was designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer, with the structure planned by the engineer Joaquim Cardozo, and it was inaugurated in 1966 to celebrate the city's 400th birthday. Its wavy, S-shaped front makes it one of the symbols of modern Brazilian architecture.

The tower is about 115 metres tall, with 32 floors and six blocks, and it has the largest reinforced-concrete structure in Brazil. About 1,160 apartments of different sizes fit inside, from small studios to three-bedroom homes, together with more than seventy shops and other businesses on the lower floors. Sources differ slightly on the exact height, from about 115 to 118 metres.

A city inside one building

Around 2,000 people live there now, although earlier estimates reached five thousand residents from different social classes. It has 20 elevators, 221 underground parking spaces, and more than 100 staff to run and repair the building.

It is so big that the Brazilian postal service gave it its own postal code. The name Copan comes from the company that first planned it, the Pan-American Hotels and Tourism Company.

Niemeyer's wavy front

Niemeyer was personally responsible for the sinuous facade. Horizontal concrete fins run along each floor to block the sun. The idea was a building open to a mix of people from many parts of society. The first plan had two buildings, the other a hotel, but only the apartment building was built.

Work began in the 1950s and was finished in 1966 after some pauses.

Wrapped in blue

Since 2014 the whole building has been covered by a transparent blue-black drape, which protects people on the street from loose mosaic tiles falling off the facade. A plan to repair or replace its 72 million exterior tiles is being considered.

The Copan has inspired writers, filmmakers and photographers. A short-story collection about life in it won a Brazilian prize in 1995, and the building appeared in an episode of the TV show The Amazing Race.

On the globe

The model shows the S-shaped slab with long horizontal fins on the facade. Look at the wavy curve.