Anyone who frequents the center of São Paulo will have come across Vila dos Ingleses. Located just a few meters from Luz Station, the century-old village has played an important role in the city’s development .
Its construction began in 1915, at a time when the São Paulo capital was gaining more and more economic strength. At that time, the city was considered the Coffee Metropolis and its population kept growing, which led to a number of transformations in the urban space.
Learn about the history of Vila dos Ingleses
At the beginning of the 20th century, the wealth of coffee and the arrival of the railroads caused São Paulo to grow at a rapid pace. To give you an idea, São Paulo’s population multiplied eightfold in just 30 years: from 69,000 inhabitants in 1890 to 579,000 in 1920.
This scenario opened the door to local and foreign investment and made it possible to build Vila dos Ingleses. The land that houses it belonged to the Marquesa de Itu, who transferred it in 1913 to her great-niece, Eliza de Aguiar D’Andrada, wife of Eduardo de Aguiar D’Andrada. Her husband was the technical director of the São Paulo Railway Company, and the couple decided to turn the area into a residential villa.
This is how Vila dos Ingleses was born, with 28 Victorian-style townhouses. The houses housed the British engineers who were working on the construction of Luz Station, thus creating an English workers’ village in the heart of São Paulo.
Over the years, however, the first residents began to leave Vila dos Ingleses. The complex then housed middle and upper class families from São Paulo, but this profile changed in the 1940s. With the emergence of the bus station, boarding houses and popular stores in the area, the wealthy families moved out and the Victorian houses slowly fell into abandonment.
Have you ever visited São Paulo’s English village?
After the closure of the bus station and the refurbishment of the Pinacoteca de São Paulo in the 1980s, the Vila dos Ingleses was back on the scene. The great-grandson of the D’Andrada family, Pierre Moreau, spearheaded a process to revitalize the space and turn it into a commercial area.
Since then, the charming Victorian villa in the center of São Paulo has been home to law, architecture, design and other offices. It also hosts events and parties from time to time, which keep one of São Paulo’s best preserved workers’ villages alive .
