Within the global plan to refurbish the historic center of Salvador, Bahia, this project focuses on the regeneration of the area located by the church of Barroquinha. Aside from the urban design of the surroundings, the intervention included the reconversion of the church into a civic center, the transformation of an old performance hall into a movie theater, and the recovery of an abandoned building to house the Gregório de Mattos Theater.

The Theater, which was the only element that was taken to completion, is conceived as a neutral space able to adapt to the program thanks to foldable and stacking wooden seats. Aside from reinforcing the existing construction, refurbishing the roof, and strengthening the structure with concrete frames, Lina Bo Bardi introduces new elements: a helicoidal stairway that swirls around a central mast, and an irregular opening known as ‘Buraco das Cavernas.’ These new, markedly expressive additions deliberately contrast with the previous structure because for the architect the objective of the refurbishment wasn’t to recover a past time but to reach a ‘historic present’ able to integrate the everyday in the historic frame.