The Museum of Art of São Paulo (MASP) designed by Lina Bo Bardi in 1968, sits on one of the city’s most important avenues, Avenida Paulista. The building itself consists of two parts: the hanging concrete and glass box; and the submerged volume underneath – with a public space sandwiched between the two.

MASP stands out on Avenida Paulista not just because of its vibrant red colour or its impressive unsupported span, but as a public space and a building that has a strong connection to the human scale and the ground plane, amongst a wall of high-rise skyscrapers. The public space is underneath a suspended mass of raw concrete, however the space feels open and unoppressive. The space is only private around the entrance to the museum with transparent fencing compromising the freeness of the space for functionality.

From the public space the building is entered through either two…