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Sao Paulo was founded on January 25, 1554 by Jesuit priests at the spot now called Patio do Colegio, a courtyard in the historic center that still exists and still marks the city's origin point. From those two Jesuits and a small mission, the city became the largest in South America and one of the ten largest metropolitan areas on earth. The journey took about four centuries and happened with extraordinary speed in the last hundred years. Paulista Avenue, the financial spine of the city, was a boulevard of coffee baron mansions when it opened in 1900. The mansions are gone; in their place stands the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo, cantilevered above the street on two massive concrete pillars, which locals treat as an underpass.

The Modern Art Week of 1922, held at the Theatro Municipal on Praca Ramos de Azevedo, launched Brazilian modernism as a cultural project.

The event brought together writers, composers, and visual artists who decided, explicitly and collectively, to build a Brazilian culture that was not merely an imitation of Europe. That argument is still going on. Sao Paulo hosts the world's largest Arab, Italian, and Japanese diasporas outside their home countries, and walking through Liberdade (Japanese), Bixiga (Italian-origin working class), or the streets around Largo do Arouche puts you inside the ongoing negotiation between what those communities brought and what they became here.