page_title: Francisco Prestes Maia
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Francisco Prestes Maia / Biography
caption_attribution_description: Vista da cidade de Amparo (SP), tirada no Morro do Cristo
context_page_description: Francisco Prestes Maia was a Brazilian architect, civil engineer, urban planner, and professor, who served three terms as mayor of the city of São Paulo.
context_section_description: Francisco Prestes Maia was born to Manuel Azevedo Maia and Carolina Prestes on March 19, 1896 in Amparo, São Paulo, a small town 120 km north of the capital city.
  In 1917, Prestes Maia completed his engineering and architecture degree at the POLI, Polytechnic School of São Paulo (Portuguese: Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo). In 1918, he set up a real estate office and also began working for the São Paulo state government.
  From 1924 to 1927, Prestes Maia taught architectural drawing courses part-time at his alma mater, POLI. He was promoted to full professor in 1927 and taught for another ten years. In 1937, he left the university in order to be able to continue working for the city.
  From 1926 to 1930, he served as the city's Secretary of Transportation and Public Works. In 1930, Prestes Maia published his “Study for a Plan of Avenues for the City of São Paulo” (Estudo de um Plano de Avenidas para a Cidade de São Paulo). The Plano de Avenidas was given an award at the Fourth Pan-American Congress of Architects at Rio de Janeiro in July 1930.
  He met Maria de Lourdes Costa Cabral e Abreu in 1930 in Rio de Janeiro, where she was on tour with an opera troupe from Portugal. The couple where not able to live together until the death of Prestes Maia's mother in 1935, since Maria had been divorced and Carolina Prestes did not approve of their relationship. The two were not able to officially marry until late in his life, given that divorce was still illegal in Brazil and her ex-husband was still alive. They had no children.
  In 1938 Prestes Maia was named mayor of São Paulo for the first time by Ademar de Barros, the interventor for the state of São Paulo at the time. He would be appointed again by Lucas Nogueira Garcez in 1942, immediately following his first term. After completing his second term, he left office on November 10, 1945 — roughly the same time that the same time that the Estado Novo was ending and democracy was restored to the country.
  
  Prestes Maia had two unsuccessful bids for political office following the overthrow of Getúlio Vargas.
  In 1961, Prestes Maia was finally elected by popular vote and began his third term as mayor of São Paulo in 1961.
  
  Francisco Prestes Maia died in São Paulo on 26 April 1965.
  Prestes Maia and his Plano de Avenidas had a lasting impact on the geography of São Paulo.
  On August 27, 1997 the city of São Paulo passed a law (Lei nº 12.443) creating the Prestes Maia Urbanism Award (Prêmio Prestes Maia de Urbanismo) to be awarded every four years with the idea of proposing initiatives in urban planning and engineering. The Prestes Maia Award has only been given twice, in 1998 and in 2006.
caption: Amparo, São Paulo — birthplace of Prestes Maia
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "CYBERSHOT", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2006:08:27 11:19:34", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "218", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "CYBERSHOT", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2006:08:27 11:19:34", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "851", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3232", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "63/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Landscape Mode", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2003:06:14 14:39:38", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2003:06:14 14:39:38", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Average", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "7", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "640", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "480", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "642", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed"}