Form 2 trip to Casas Literárias

By H. Prado

On Tuesday the 12th of March, the F2s visited Casa Mario de Andrade and Casa Guilherme de Almeida; two houses of modernist Brazilian authors. Both of these were museums and included personal belongings along with works by the late writers. During the trip, Form 2s had the opportunity to see the architecture used at the time first-hand and get to know more about the inspirations for the authors' pieces by looking at their private possessions as well as the places where they used to write in. This was a very different and beneficial experience as we had read about the authors beforehand, so the trip was a wonderful way of visualizing what we learnt.


The Mario de Almeida house is located in Barra Funda. There, pupils had the opportunity to see loads of photographs of Mario and his colleagues, many of which participated in the Semana de Arte Moderna in 1922. They also saw a lot of Mario de Andrade's works that were in display and sculptures of him. Lastly, they participated in an activity organized by teachers and workers of the house where they had to find certain objects that were related to different aspects of Mario's life. This way, each group observed items about one subject and all groups shared their knowledge in the end, enhancing everyone's understanding.


Next in order, Guilherme de Almeida's house featured an amazing view that he wrote about many times in his pieces, including one read by the Form 2s in class. In this chronicle, Guilherme mentioned that the house was one of the only ones on the street and that the view was deserted except for the Araça Cemetery and the Estádio do Pacaembu, which is a tremendous contrast from the present-day view that we witnessed. Pupils saw the room where he used to work and usually spent several days writing without leaving. One of the main differences from Guilherme to Mario's house was that Guilherme's was more furnished since his wife turned it into a museum as soon as he died. Therefore, students could see more of his life, his personal belongings and letters he received to understand more of his story as the museum was created by someone very close to him.
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Overall, both houses were very interesting and provided Form 2s with an understanding that they would not have been able to obtain in class, meaning that the trip was very successful and fun!