Conjunto dos Dominicanos, Eclectic building in Perdizes District, Brazil

Conjunto dos Dominicanos is a complex of buildings of the Dominican Order in Perdizes: the Convento Santo Alberto Magno, founded in 1938 on the grounds of the former Cardoso de Almeida estate, and the Igreja de São Domingos, built from 1953 to a design by architect Franz Heep. The church is a single concrete volume seating more than a thousand people, beside a 34-metre tower with diamond-shaped windows along its full height.

Four Dominican friars led by Friar Martinho Bennet arrived in Brazil in 1938 and bought the Cardoso de Almeida family's chácara in Perdizes, founding the Convento Santo Alberto Magno as the order's house of theological studies. In 1953 the Dominicans commissioned architect Franz Heep to build the Church of São Domingos and its 34-metre tower beside the convent. The complex later became a base of resistance to the military dictatorship.

The church is known as Igreja do Povo, a name earned through the friars' work with workers and students. In 1965 they founded the Campanha de Solidariedade ao Desempregado, tying class issues and labour rights to parish life. Sunday masses drew around 1,000 people and were used to speak openly against the dictatorship.

The complex sits on Rua Caiubi in Perdizes, with the church and tower set beside the former convent. The convent now houses Colégio Pentágono, so visits focus on the church, where Dominican friars still celebrate Mass. The sanctuary holds over a thousand people, and the tower rises 34 meters.

In 1968 friars of the convent helped organise the clandestine UNE congress in Ibiúna; the participants were denounced to the DOPS after buying more than 200 cruzeiros of bread at once, and the students and friars, including Frei Tito, were arrested. The regime later used Operation Batina Branca to discredit the order.