The Mário de Andrade Library (in

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

: ''Biblioteca Mário de Andrade''; BMA) is the largest

public library A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil service, civil servants. There are ...

in the city of

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. Founded in 1925, with a donation of holdings by the library of the city's

Câmara Municipal Câmara (meaning "chamber") is a common surname in the Portuguese language. It may also refer to: People * António de Vasconcelos e Sousa Câmara Caminha Faro e Veiga, 8th Count of Calheta, 4th Marquis of Castelo Melhor and Constable of Portugal ...

, it became one of the most important

cultural institutions A cultural institution or cultural organization is an organization within a culture/subculture that works for the preservation or promotion of culture. The term is especially used of public and charitable organizations, but its range of meaning can ...

in Brazil, as well as one of the leading

research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

libraries in the country. It is named in honor of

Mário de Andrade Mário Raul de Morais Andrade (October 9, 1893 – February 25, 1945) was a Brazilian poet, novelist, musicologist, art historian and critic, and photographer. He wrote one of the first and most influential collections of modern Brazilian poetr ...

, one of the founders of Brazilian

modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

. It is housed in an

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

building in the historical downtown, considered one of the icons of this style in the city. Mário de Andrade Library was the first Brazilian public institution interested in acquiring modern works of art of local and foreign artists (which are placed today in the ''Pinacoteca Municipal'').Biblioteca Mário de Andrade
Retrieved on 2009-06-12. It has been a member of

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

depository libraries system since 1958, though it started receiving UN material nine years earlier, in 1949.Vera Lucia Pinheiro da Silva
Informação e cidadania
Retrieved on 2009-06-12. During

Sérgio Milliet Sérgio Milliet da Costa e Silva, generally known as Sérgio Milliet (São Paulo November 20, 1898 – São Paulo November 9, 1966) was a Brazilian writer, painter, poet, essayist, literary and art critic, and sociologist. See also * List of ...

's administration, the library would have a very large participation in São Paulo intellectual sets. Later, the library would be frequented by academics as

Fernando Henrique Cardoso Fernando Henrique Cardoso (; born 18 June 1931), also known by his initials FHC (), is a Brazilian sociologist, professor and politician who served as the 34th president of Brazil from 1 January 1995 to 31 December 2002. He was the first Brazi ...

and

Marilena Chaui Marilena de Souza Chaui (born September 4, 1941) is a Brazilian philosopher and Professor of Modern Philosophy in the University of São Paulo. She is a scholar of Baruch Spinoza and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Chaui is one of the founding members of ...

. Sheltering the second largest bibliographic and documental heritage of Brazil — only after the

National Library A national library is a library established by a government as a country's preeminent repository of information. Unlike public library, public libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books. Often, they include numerous rare, valuable, o ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

— the Mário de Andrade Library is the depository of all artistic and cultural registers of the city of São Paulo. Its collection includes about 3.2 million items, covering all areas of the

knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...

— amongst which a distinct assemblage of over 60,000 rare books,

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...

incunabula In the history of printing, an incunable or incunabulum (plural incunables or incunabula, respectively), is a book, pamphlet, or broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500. Incunabula were pro ...

map A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes. Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...

prints In molecular biology, the PRINTS database is a collection of so-called "fingerprints": it provides both a detailed annotation resource for protein families, and a diagnostic tool for newly determined sequences. A fingerprint is a group of conserve ...

, ''brasiliana'' and others, produced between 15th and 19th centuries. The Mário Andrade Municipal Library has branches throughout the city, providing circulating materials to general public.

References

External links

Official site

2009-11-01)
Biblioteca Mário de Andrade at Google Cultural Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mario De Andrade Library Libraries in São Paulo Art Deco architecture in Brazil Central Zone of São Paulo Tourist attractions in São Paulo Libraries established in 1925 1925 establishments in Brazil