O CAMPUS E A CIDADE: MEMÓRIAS E REFLEXÕES DO CENTRO UNIVERSITÁRIO ADVENTISTA DE SÃO PAULO NO CAPÃO REDONDO

Abstract

The Centro Universitário Adventista de São Paulo (Unasp), former Brazilian Adventist College, later Adventist Teaching Institute, is a centenary educational institution located in the Capão Redondo District. It was founded in 1915 to be the Brazilian seminary for preparing preachers, missionaries and employees when it was still a rural area of ​​the extinct municipality of Santo Amaro. The distance from urban centres was suitable for the academic, work, and religious life of young students.

However, urban sprawl reached them, deconstructing its idyllic ideal, and confiscating most of its land to build Social Housing. It was a remarkable and pioneer experience of collective self-building and technical assistance process in São Paulo and Brazil even before the City Statute.

The article describes this case study by the Unasp’s approach and, on the other hand, the scholars’ and architects’ who accompanied the modern Social Housing beginning. The fundamental discussion is whether Unasp has become an oasis or a diaspora in the “Quebradas” of Capão Redondo. Concluding, this process is still unfinished, but nowadays most are non-Adventist students, and the growing practices of extension are inducing to the surrounding community effectively appropriate the Unasp.