Mercado Municipal de São Paulo

This guide to the Mercado Municipal de São Paulo follows the building from its 1928 groundbreaking, an eclectic cathedral-like shell modeled loosely on Berlin's food markets and topped with seventy-two stained-glass panes by craftsman Conrado Sorgenicht. It traces what happened when the market stood finished but empty in 1932, and how São Paulo's revolt against the federal government changed what filled its twelve-thousand-square-meter floor before a single vendor could unpack an orange. Look up at Sorgenicht's glass, still fitted into an oddly uneven thirty-two frames.