Central 1926

On Praça da Bandeira, in downtown São Paulo, stood the Riachuelo power substation, built in 1926. Today the building is Central 1926, a cultural embassy that hosts concerts, parties, fairs, talks, exhibitions, food events and a recording studio, along with a rooftop overlooking the city centre. We created the branding and visual identity in 2022, when the venue opened, and have led Central’s communication ever since.

A place that welcomes everything risks meaning nothing. The identity had to hold a programme with no fixed centre, while still letting anyone recognise Central in any context.

The answer came from the building’s original purpose. A substation receives energy, converts it and distributes it. Central does the same with culture: it brings together what arrives from every direction and amplifies it. The brand’s symbols grow out of these two ideas, convergence and amplification, and the near-century-old building stops being a backdrop and becomes a principle.

A visual language built to follow everything the venue produces, from a concert to a fair. The system also shapes how people share the space: the venue’s notices on respect, harassment and heritage were designed as part of the identity, not as service signage. Central speaks to its audience in the same voice, whatever the situation.

A building from 1926 found a contemporary language without losing its history. Four years after the opening, the identity is still alive because we are still inside it. Every concert, fair or exhibition Central produces runs through the same system, refined year after year alongside the venue’s programme. It is the kind of project you judge not by the delivery, but by what endures after it.