Geraldo Vespaziano Puntoni, Vespa, as he was called, was born in Brotas, in the interior of São Paulo, in 1932. After losing his father in 1935, he lived in his grandfather’s house, with his mother and two sisters. At the age of 14, he finished his primary education and moved alone to São Paulo to continue his studies.
In 1953, he entered the Faculty of Urban Planning and Architecture of USP, where he obtained his architect’s degree and began working in the Department of Public Works, where he remained a civil servant until his retirement. He was also a professor at the same FAU-USP until 2002, and in recent years, at Faap and at Escola da Cidade, of which he was one of the founders and a great enthusiast.
In March 2025, he lost his great companion, Tiche Puntoni, pianist and musician with whom he lived for 62 years. That’s exactly when he started losing his memory due to hydrocephalus. On a sunny Sunday, November 30, he also left. He was 93 years old.
He was an artist, a humanist. An architect and educator, he also defines himself as an activist for social, racial and gender equality. He was confronted, like many of his contemporaries, with the brutality of the dictatorship.
As an educator, he defined himself as a persistent learner; as an artist, passionate about popular expression. When he received the title of professor emeritus at Escola da Cidade in 2013, he said: “We must be bold to transform our reality and our world.”
On April 2, 1979, he went to the Dops (Department of Political and Social Order) to provide details “on his life as a university student”. This is what his medical file, kept in the State Archives of São Paulo, says. The document shows how he tried to dodge questions about his colleagues and friends; without knowing, probably, what the political police already knew about his activism as a member of the base of PCB architects, as president of the São Paulo Architects Union. He was not arrested.
In the Dops file, we can see the marks of his fingers, an exact trace of the intimidation gesture of someone who, at the time, had no guarantee of his rights. In the upper right corner, his signature, a quick scribble, a confident line, which denotes the technique of the drawing teacher.
The document is just a trace that marks your presence in the world. Several other clues to his existence remain, such as the Morumbi House, which he designed and built in the 1970s (and which was used for countless parties among family friends), the collection of 400 lamps he amassed throughout his work visiting construction sites within the state, a large library, and the sculptures he made with newspaper and tape, forming unthinkable figures and bringing to life to inert matter.
Until the end, he continued to transform “scrap metal,” as he liked to call it, into a work of art.
He leaves, in addition to his two sons (both professors at USP) and his daughters-in-law Malu and Fernanda, his grandchildren João Pedro, Matias, Beatriz, Antônio and Bruno, who will be the guides of his presence among us.
column.obituario@grupofolha.com.br
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