Brazil’s long-established agency for the preservation of culturally significant sites and buildings, the Institute for National Artistic and Historical Heritage (IPHAN), has been successful in protecting many of its modern architectural icons, among them Oscar Niemeyer’s Brasília Cathedral and Affonso Eduardo Reidy’s Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro. 

But in a country with plenty of historically significant architecture – from baroque to brutalist – there have been misses, the result of politics, scarce resources, and other challenges that every country faces in its preservation efforts. 

Most notably in São Paulo, the opulent mansions built by sugar and coffee barons in the mid-to-late 19th and early 20th centuries have all but disappeared, despite their unique place in the city’s history. Progress has been made in the form of legal protection for the few homes that remain. But protection is one thing, restoration is quite another. The hefty bill that comes with the latter often falls on patrons of the arts such as Carlos Jereissati.