Auditório Ibirapuera (Ibirapuera Auditorium) – projected by architect Oscar Niemeyer fifty years ago in his original plan for Ibirapuera Park – was finally built by cell phone operator TIM Celular and donated to the City of Sao Paulo.

“Music is a universal language that every people use to overcome obstacles and differences,” says Mario Cesar Pereira de Araujo, president of TIM Brasil. “And no other people knows how to use this language with more talent than Brazilian people. Music is part of the Brazilian spirit. This is why TIM invested in architect Oscar Niemeyer’s project for Ibirapuera Park. With the building of this auditorium, TIM aims to offer Sao Paulo residents a quality, comfortable place for them to experience music without borders.”

The start of the building of the auditorium was marked by a ceremony in February 23, 2003. Sao Paulo received the edifice from TIM Brasil as a gift for its 450th anniversary in December 2004. All the work was conducted under Oscar Niemeyer’s architecture company supervision: the architect himself overlooked the necessary adjustments for the original project. TIM invested 29 million reals (approximately US$ 12.8 million, or € 10.7 million – as of October 2005) in this project.

Auditório Ibirapuera has 52,420 square feet of constructed area and it will house cultural activities compatible to its dimension and aim – notably music concerts. Its facilities will also be used to foster young musical talents and to promote meetings between different cultures and forms of musical expression, both national and international.

The auditorium’s stage is particularly remarkable – its stage opening is ninety-two feet wide and the stage is forty-nine feet deep. The auditorium’s internal capacity is eight hundred people. Other than that, a sixty-five feet wide door at the far end of the stage opens to the exterior of the building, and then the stage can be used for outdoor concerts for approximately fifteen thousand people. Auditório Ibirapuera’s basement houses Escola do Auditório (The Auditorium’s School), which is aimed at teaching music and training young musical talents with limited income, who study in government-funded schools. The auditorium’s facilities will also be used to train young people who are interested in working with light, sound, set, and production techniques, among other abilities that can be practiced there. Young people will also be encouraged to attend concerts, through specific programs designed to create new audiences.

“The Auditorium can be used both for indoor and outdoor music concerts,” says Oscar Niemeyer, “since the stage can be opened to the external part of the building, and facilities such as dressing-rooms and other key services are available.”

Auditório Ibirapuera will be administered by Instituto Auditório Ibirapuera (Ibirapuera Auditorium Institute), a kind of Civil Society of Public Concern Organization, launched in April 2004 whose board of directors comprises arts and culture personalities, with special attention to music, presided by Mario Cohen.

“This project results from a great joint initiative from the City of Sao Paulo and TIM Brasil, which is to offer Auditório Ibirapuera to the residents of this city, respecting the exact determinations renowned architect Oscar Niemeyer determined in his original project,” says Mario Cohen. “This place will be início to music lessons, concerts, performances. If everything goes as planed, Auditório Ibirapuera will fulfill both its administrators and sponsor goals.”

The auditorium houses three great pieces of artwork: near the entrance there is a sculpture by Oscar Niemeyer entitled “Labareda” (flame); in the main hall, we see a sculpture by artist Tomie Ohtake; and in the central hall of The Auditorium’s School there is an artistic panel by Luis Antônio Vallandro Keating – 52.5 feet long and eight feet high, entitled “Ensaio de Orquestra” (Orchestra Rehersal).