Photos: Camila Svenson
The documental and bibliographic collection of Casa do Povo is available for consultation and tends to be a source for researches in several domains of knowledge. Part of the collection can be checked in the online database, and another part is only available at the archives of Casa do Povo, which intends to spread its collection as a popular and democratic educational initiative for building knowledge.
Part of the documental collection of Casa do Povo is available online HERE.
In case you have a specific demand, fill the research form HERE or write to acervos@casadopovo.org.br.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemics, in-person visits to the collections of Casa do Povo take place exclusively upon appointment, which can be booked at acervos@casadopovo.org.br.
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At the number 252 of Três Rios street in the neighborhood of Bom Retiro, capital city of São Paulo, one can find the Casa do Povo, a place of experimental character and dedicated to a critical education, where past and future build permanent connections and dialogues in the present. Such connection becomes evident when observing the architectural project by Ernest Mange, the coexistence of different collectives in the institution, the memories of its regular attendees, or the documental and bibliographic collections existing there.
With its historical, Jewish, and humanist premises, Casa do Povo was erected in 1946 by the collective effort of part of the Jewish community coming from Western Europe, then considered “progressive” and politically engaged, later serving as a guide for future generations. Inaugurated in 1953, Casa do Povo becomes a monument to recall the Jewish people who died during the Shoah of the Second World War, as well as a meeting place for the survivors who then settled in the city of São Paulo.
As a place of resistance to authoritarian regimes and shelter for those arriving in São Paulo, Casa do Povo broadens the notion of culture, in a tight-knit dialogue comprising collective memory and the neighborhood of Bom Retiro. Such actions become visible through the vividness of TAIB (Teatro de Arte Israelita Brasileiro or Israeli-Brazilian Art Theater), the pedagogical avant-gardes in place at the Scholem Aleichem Israeli School, the issues of Our Voice newspaper, the choirs, the study groups, and several other activities held in the institution and outside of it.
The whole experience of Casa do Povo, that passes through both national and international history, was and continues to be recorded through the documents allocated in the Archive or in the Yiddish and general knowledge bibliographical collection. Currently, amid documental funds and collections, Casa do Povo keeps more than 10 thousand documents. In addition to a library of nearly 1 thousand titles, there is also a collection of almost 4 thousand rare books in Yiddish language.
Among the documents at Casa do Povo, there are also pictures of all its operation periods and the cultural actions here undertaken; managerial documents detailing the functioning of the institution and other entities that used the space; theater plays and their programs, posters, images, and scripts that were part of the history of TAIB; the pedagogical collection of the Scholem Aleichem Israeli School; as well as several private collections that collaborated to enriching the Brazilian and Jewish cultures over the 20th and 21st centuries.