Gainsborough

History

The Gainsborough occupies number 586 on Rua Jacques Félix, in the upper stretch of the street, within Vila Nova Conceiçãoi‘s most sought-after residential perimeter. The name comes from the English portraitist Thomas Gainsborough, in the tradition of European christenings that marked São Paulo’s residential stock of the 1970s and 1980s — the same repertoire that gave the neighbourhood a Saint Charles, a Villa Borghese, a Maison Lovre and a Montparnasse less than two hundred metres away.

What can be stated about the building’s age comes from the municipality itself: the tower already appears, at sixty-two metres, in the City Hall’s aerial photogrammetric survey from 2007 — that is, it predates that date. Circulating market records point to 1984, a figure no independent source has supported, and for that reason the delivery year is left blank in this record.

• Concept: a single tower on a podium on a large plot on a residential street — verticality and floor area on a block the neighbourhood has protected.
• Curiosities: the Gainsborough is one of five addresses on Rua Jacques Félix with its own postcode at the Post Office, a distinction reserved for well-established buildings — the others are numbers 76, 162, 408 and 709. On the same street are the Panoramai, at number 66, and the Ritz Vila Novai, at 450.

Architecture and aesthetics

A single tower on a podium, the classic approach of São Paulo’s high end at the turn of the 1980s: parking and services resolved in a low volume covering almost the entire plot, with the residential slab set back above it. The municipal survey measures a 1,329 m² podium footprint and a 352 m² tower footprint, rising to about 62 metres — enough to lift the upper units above the line of the neighbours and give back a view over the neighbourhood’s tree-covered core. The floor plans range from 158 m² to about 362 m², the latter with three suites and five bathrooms. The credits for the architectural design and the development are not publicly documented and, for that reason, are not attributed here.

Aesthetics and scarcity

Technical specifications

• Towers and units: 1 tower on a podium.
• Sizes: 158 to 362 m², from 2 to 4 bedrooms, with up to 3 suites and up to 5 bathrooms. The largest floor plan is a penthouse of about 360 m², with 3 suites.
• Parking: 3.
• Structural highlights: 1,710 m² plot with a 1,329 m² podium footprint and a 352 m² tower footprint, measured at about 62 m in height.
• Registry and parameters: 1,710 m² plot · 1 tower on a podium · 2 to 4 bedrooms · up to 3 suites · up to 5 bathrooms · 3 parking spaces · private areas from 158 m² to 362 m² · registry authority 4º Registro de Imóveis de São Pauloi · ZEU zoning (Law 16.402/2016).

Location and surroundings

Points of interest · distances in metres

Vila Nova Conceição: the address

Vila Nova Conceiçãoi is the neighbourhood that stopped being made of houses and became the most expensive square metre in São Paulo without losing its neighbourhood scale. Rua Jacques Félix is one of the perimeter’s densest streets in residential buildings: it climbs from Avenida Santo Amaroi towards Praça Pereira Coutinhoi, the neighbourhood’s living room, and settles the bakery, the gym, the restaurant and the street market on foot. Parque Ibirapuerai is a few minutes away on one side; the Itaim Bibii business axis and Faria Limai on the other. It is an address that never depended on new launches to hold its value: what drives it up is the absence of land.