Engineer and architect Adolpho Lindenberg, icon of the real estate market, dies at age 99

Engineer and architect Adolpho Lindenberg died this Thursday, 2, at the age of 99. Considered an icon of the São Paulo real estate market, he was an exponent of the construction of high-end residential houses and apartments marked by innovation. The cause of death was not disclosed.

The wake will take place until 9:30 am this Friday, 3rd, at the Institute’s headquarters, at Rua Maranhão, 341, in Higienópolis, in the center of São Paulo. The burial will take place at 10 am at the Consolação Cemetery (Rua da Consolação, 1.660), also in the center.

The Union of Companies for the Purchase, Sale, Leasing or Administration of Residential or Commercial Properties (Secovi-SP) and the Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Institute, of which Lindenberg was founder and honorary president, mourned his death.

In a note, Secovi-SP paid tribute to Lindenberg: “Considered an icon of the market, his career was made up of innovative achievements, landmark ventures, which returned the neoclassical to the urban landscape. A man of value, principles and a great humanist. His example and his legacy remain in all who seek to do their best in the real estate market.”

“Adolpho was an icon in the architectural innovation of residential real estate products”, stated the 2nd vice-president of Secovi-SP, Claudio Bernardes. “He leaves a very important legacy for the market and the city”, he concluded.

Also in a note, the Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Institute mourned his death and highlighted Lindenberg’s kinship with Oliveira (“devoted cousin and disciple of the distinguished Catholic from whom our Institute takes its name”) and the fact that the engineer and architect had been a partner founder of the Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP).

Formation and history

Adolpho Lindenberg graduated in Engineering and Architecture from Universidade Mackenzie, in São Paulo, in 1949. Initially, he opened a small engineering office in São Paulo, but in 1954, while São Paulo was celebrating its fourth centenary, he founded Construtora Adolpho Lindenberg ( CAL), focusing on building high-end homes.

The company’s first works were three houses built with money from his father’s inheritance in the newly designed Ibirapuera neighborhood, in the south of SP.

During the 1950s, he built many colonial-style houses. In the following decade, Lindenberg built his first building and caused a change in concepts: as there was no longer space for mansions in the most desirable neighborhoods of São Paulo, he began to offer apartments with the same size and luxury as the properties his clientele was accustomed to. He convinced São Paulo’s elite to live in apartments – or “superimposed houses”, as he called them -, warning that this change was necessary to guarantee greater security for residents.

During this period, the construction company adopted the neoclassical or Mediterranean style, which was widely accepted in the real estate market, to the point that 60% of luxury buildings at that time followed this architectural pattern. His neoclassical style came to be known as the “Linenberg style”, which demonstrates his influence at the time.

In the 1970s, the construction company launched the first flat in Brazil and the first building with private pools on the terraces, both in Jardins (west zone of São Paulo). In the same period, it carried out the first incorporation of Brasília and also began to build commercial buildings, for hotels (such as Casa Grande, in Guarujá) and industries (Texaco, Avon, Petrobras and Philip Morris).

During the 1980s, faced with the uncontrolled inflation that was corroding the Brazilian economy, the construction company adopted the Cost Price System, in which the installments were readjusted according to the increase in prices and the dollar. The company began to focus on neighborhoods such as Morumbi, Panamby and the Marginal do Pinheiros region, which became the new commercial axis in São Paulo, after Paulista and Brigadeiro Faria Lima avenues.

An icon was the launch of the Wilson Mendes Caldeira Building, one of the first buildings on Marginal do Pinheiros. Other highlights of the time were two Mediterranean-style projects, with swimming pools on the terraces of each floor, rotating on their own axis in a “fan”.

In the 1990s, to adapt to the market, the construction company changed its apartment customization system.

In the early 2000s, the construction company joined the LDI Group, a holding company with development and construction companies (CAL), marketing and sales management of its properties (LindenHouse), urban planning (LPU) and development and management of shopping centers (REP ). The partnership continued until 2019.

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, Lindenberg launched five high-end buildings in prime areas of the capital, one of them being the largest apartment in São Paulo, with 1,223 square meters of private area.

In the 2010s, Adolpho Lindenberg was awarded for his performance and contribution to the real estate market, and the Lindenberg Timboril development was awarded as a sales success story in the high-end market in the interior of São Paulo.

Simultaneously with his work as an engineer, Lindenberg was always closely linked to the Catholic Church. He helped found the Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP). In December 2006, he also created the Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Institute, of which he was president and was currently honorary president.

In 1999, Lindenberg published the work “Catholics and the Market Economy – Opposition or Collaboration? Common Sense Considerations”.