The Anhangabaú Valley is an urban infrastructure inserted in the middle of the historical fabric of the central area of the city of São Paulo, having become one of the main landmarks of the contemporary metropolis.

Overlapping the North-South road connection of the city, it is now configured in a large slab, with multiple connections with its surroundings, which facilitates pedestrian crossing it in different directions. Literally a great bridge between the so-called Old Center - in its historic triangle - and the New Center, today this region on the scale of the city is configured in what we broadly identify as the Center. This vision of a single Center develops as a function of some factors; the very scale that the metropolis acquired makes us identify a Central region, in relation to other regions of the city. In addition, it is undoubted that the Tea Viaduct and the Santa Ifigênia Viaduct, each in its own time, were decisive for the connectivity of the historic triangle to the southwest region; the Valley, it can be said, is another infrastructure that brings us the notion of a single Center.
Inserted in a historically consolidated context, of architectural assets of the highest value for the city, the Valley inevitably accompanied the degradation of the Center, not so much for its state of conservation, but for its gradual functional outdated over time. The degradation of the Center brought with it a drop in the number of residents in the central neighborhoods, a trend that has apparently been reversed by several public policies. Along with the lack of residents, large social problems have been established over time, low quality residences, and residents who, because they have no other financial options, move to the devalued Center. Many commendable actions have been undertaken, however, we will only see the results in the long term. We understand that the Valley will be an important part of the process of establishing a new vitality, contributing significantly to the requalification of the central region as a whole. This is a strategic operation - its requalification and reurbanization will be sensitive from several points of view:
- Geographic: historically recognized as a connection between the Old Center and the New Center, today it can be understood as a possible connection between the sprawling contemporary São Paulo with its own history.
– Topográfico: fundo de vale, porém tendo capilaridade com seu entorno, é visível dos prédios ao seu redor, e também libera vistas para o corredor Norte-Sul.
- Functional: the buildings around it, despite originally having the Valley as "the back" of the city, can in an innovative way receive interventions that make it true active facades, with the Valley having an articulating role for these true urban fronts.
- Educational: future generations will be able to identify in the territory of the Valley a possibility of inserting themselves contemporaneously into historical fabrics, that is, a way of connecting to the history of their own city in an ever renewed way.
- Of its scale: a rare territory of amplitude in a densely occupied area such as the Center, it is a moment of respite for pedestrians.
- Historic: its rescue as a public area of extensive use reconnects the contemporary city to its historical fabric.
- Social: positively transform the Valley in order to attract a greater diversity of people, establishing and stimulating the coexistence of different types of people in the same territory.
- Symbolic: its renovation is capable of transforming it into the newest landmark of the city, demarcating the renovation of the Center as possible and above all, desired by all. The project, therefore, instead of demolishing or disqualifying the existing one, focusing only on its negative points, will seek its valorization, rescuing its historicity and adequacy to the contemporary mode of use, reinserting it in the new functional and technological logic of the current city, a scenario possibly unimaginable at the time of its initial constitution.
By MALUCELLI, Paulo.