Teatro Oficina

The main argument of this article holds that São Paulo’s notorious Teatro Oficina has been working toward an emblematic form of critical urbanism ever since its inauguration in 1958. Throughout six decades, the theater has been an urbanistic laboratory, where a combination of theatrical, architectural and urban experiments continuously reflected and reacted upon ongoing metropolitan transformations. Located in São Paulo’s downtown neighborhood of Bixiga, Teatro Oficina’s architectural history involves a complex assembly of artistic, social, intellectual, architectural and urbanistic movements. By unfolding a spatial memoir of the theater, this contribution probes the agency of theater-architecture as a means for investigating and intervening in the spatial production and reproduction of the city. In doing so, the aim is to examine the distinct quest for a more profound right to the city that emanates from such ‘theatrical-architectural’ critique and action. If implementing the right to the city is indeed critical urban theory’s ultimate purpose, how then has Oficina been perpetually putting such right into debate and practice? In other words, what form of critical urbanism emanates from the distinctive convergence of movements in theater, architecture and urbanism?