São Paulo – Named last week in honor of the president of the Management Council and former president of the board of directors of theArab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, the Auditorium Walid Yazigi is part of a large multipurpose area that takes the whole 11th floor of the Santa Catarina Building, in Avenida Paulista, São Paulo. The organization’s new headquarters, which opened in Ap1ril of this year, spans two floors in the building.
The 11th floor facilities are very flexible and prepared to host many type of events. The project was signed by architect Ruy Ohtake, who decided to build the circular auditorium in the center part of the floor. The room seats 180 people and can be used for lectures, seminars, cultural presentations and film screenings, among other things.
Ohtake calls this central area the “strong space” and, around it, there are other multipurpose areas. There is, for instance, an area that can be customized to host luncheons, dinners, cocktail parties, business matchmaking and even art and handicraft exhibitions or exhibition of products. A fully-equipped kitchen next to it ensures that the guests won’t be without food and drinks.
Part of the area around the auditorium has built-in niches in the walls with Arab art and handicraft objects, like a circular museum, in the words of Ohtake.
The place also has meeting rooms of different sizes, with full audiovisual equipment, WiFi, the Jamil Saliba Library, women’s and men’s bathrooms with access for disabled people, and a large reception area.
To illustrate the flexibility of the facilities, last Tuesday (29), in the morning, a presentation was held by the Ras Al Khaimah Economic Zone (RAKEZ) for nearly 60 Brazilian entrepreneurs; in the late afternoon, there was a ceremony in honor of Walid Yazigi, with the unveiling of the auditorium’s plaque; and in the evening there was a cocktail party and a signing session of the books written by Yazigi.
“We have available in the Arab Chamber a multipurpose area capable of hosting different types of events,” said the organization’s president, Rubens Hannun. “Today, the facilities are on the same level of the Arab Chamber’s grandiosity,” said Yazigi recently.
In a lecture that he gave to explain the concepts of the organization’s new headquarters, Ohtake, who also projected the Santa Catarina building, said that he built the building with only four foundation pillars instead of eight, to leave large free spaces. “This offers the possibility of designing the most varied layouts”, he pointed out. This is one of the main characteristics of the Arab Chamber’s facilities.
Further information on the facilities
Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce
Marketing Department
Speak to Tâmara Machado
Phone: 55 11 3145-3277
Email: tmachado@ccab.org.br
Address: Avenida Paulista, 283, 10th floor, Bela Vista, São Paulo, SP, ZIP Code 01311-000
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
