Here are a few more snapshots from a couple additional days exploring Rio. I will be returning to Rio for another week at the end of my trip, which is good because there is a lot more to see! Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Glória dates to 1739 and became a favorite church of the royal family when they moved to Brazil in 1808. The blue and white Portuguese tiles are stunning and are one of Brazil's most significant assemblages of them. Something about their height on the wall (maybe about 6 feet? Taller than I am...) and their continuity makes you feel really enveloped in this space. (Can you spot Cristo in the last photo?) Igreja de Nossa Senhora de Candelária is giant in comparison to the other churches I've seen. It was built over a long period of time, from 1775 to 1894, and was supposedly the largest and wealthiest church in imperial Brazil. After seeing it, I would believe this! Candelária has one of the wind screens at the entrance of the church like I saw in Paraty. I thought these pews were pretty incredible, too. Switching gears to modernism... Reidy (architect of Pedregulho from a previous post) designed Rio's Museu de Arte Moderna. The museum was founded in 1948 and was was initially housed in the Ministry of Health and Education Buidling! In 1953, Reidy drew up a plan for the museum's new building on a zone of Rio's shore that would become Burle Marx's Flamengo Park. The giant v-shaped pilotis appear to prop up the large gallery volume. Indeed, the interior was engineered to have column-free galleries. Reidy's vision for the museum had a lot to do with a visual connection to the mountains and the sea. When I visited, the museum had largely blocked off Reidy's intended views, covering the large glass wall on the waterfront side of the building -- understandably for art conservation. Marcelo and Milton Robert (the Roberto brothers of the Parque Guinle building) designed the Associação Brasileira de Imprensa, or the Brazilian Press Association Building, in 1936. It is often considered the first large-scale modernist building in Brazil -- the barometer for which is usually Le Corbusier's visit to Rio. The exterior facade is travertine marble, making it appear more weighty than say, the Ministry of Health and Education Building. I think the way in which the massive corner is preserved creates a similar effect. The fixed brises-soleil are on the north and northeastern sides of the building: the sides most affected by the sun in the southern hemisphere. I took a stroll on Copacabana beach which is being set up as one of the Olympics sites (beach volleyball, of course!). It's hard to convey in photos all the work that's going on because it is quite spread out, but it appears that the entire center of the boulevard is being built up, as well as designated areas of the beach.
I also passed by the Museum of Image and Sound being designed by New York-based architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, which will celebrate Brazilian music and film. It was clearly not open yet when I walked by, but perhaps by August...? I would love to see DSR meet samba. Had to check out Ipanema beach. The tides come in quickly here! Até logo, Rio!
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Rua Paulo César de Andrade might as well be the modernist row of the carioca (Rio-based) school of architecture. The street is home to three of Lucio Costa's apartment buildings, and two others by the Roberto brothers that wrap around Parque Guinle in the Rio's Laranjeiras neighborhood. Designed between 1948 and 1954, Costa's works -- the Nova Cintra, Bristol, and Caledônia buildings -- are sited at the lower end of the sloping park. These buildings were meant to serve as models for a larger project the Guinle family wanted to build in the park that they owned. At first the buildings seem nearly identical with their pilotis and diverse patterns of cobogó bricks forming sun shades for the balconies. Yet, they each navigate different sites, and use space and materials in subtly different ways. Nova Cintra, at the base of the park and on a relatively flat site, is more woven into the urban fabric of the city than the others. I was so pleasantly surprised to find it had a mixed-use ground level! Though a fence makes this zone feel private, a small grocery, a pilates studio, a boutique store, and a dance studio are here. Obviously, I had to grab a pão de queijo -- with some monkeys! In the residential part of the design, Costa pulled out the circulation and encased the stairwells in glass In a really unusual way. Moving up the slope of the park, the Bristol building is next. Here the pilotis are used to open up the ground level much more, and the facade is more regular, with only the play of textures to individualize it a bit. Caledônia, further up on up the hill, has the most open ground level, opening up vistas to the rock outcropping just beyond it. Here, I noticed a greater use of pink, and floor patterns, both of which seem to complement the cobogós. The Roberto brothers -- Marcelo, Milton, and Maurício -- were a mainstay in the Rio modernist scene. Marcelo and Maurício designed two attached residential buildings that follow the curve of the mountain around Parque Guinle Between 1950 and 1962. Like the other buildings, I could wander freely around the ground level. From afar, the complex looks completely massive, bordering on Brutalism. Up close, the materials (tiles) and playful geometry of the structure give way to more variety.
Back in Rio de Janeiro and still on a mission to see the tourist hotspots before the Olympics, I headed across the bay to Niemeyer's Museu do Arte Contemporânea (MAC). I know, I know... it's late Niemeyer. But the building is stunning in person.
Completed in 1996, MAC is perched on a promontory, wedged between the road and the sea. I was immediately struck by the building's connection to the water, something that I never fully understood from photos (though I have tried to convey this in mine). There is a pool of water at the building's base that casts shimmering reflections onto the underside of the building. Beyond the pool is the sea. The overall shape of the building foils the mountains of Rio in the distance. Ramps lead to the first level of the building, housing the museum lobby, restrooms, and gift shop. Aside from being tiny ("object building" over practicality here), the circulation makes sense for a museum. A ramp leads back outside and up another level into the gallery space. The red color of the ramp casts a pink glow on the white exterior walls of the museum, giving the threshold of the museum a unique character. The first level of galleries truly showcases the surrounding environment with 360-degree views back to Niterói, nearby islands, and Rio. There are beaches on the horizon and beaches right below the building; windows at a 40-degree slant allow for vertiginous views of waves lapping the shore. A low bench provides informal seating at the edge of the galleries. Ilha da Boa Viagem is in view to the north, just across the water. A path winds up the side of the rocky outcrop -- a comparison to Niemeyer's snaking ramps is unavoidable. The gallery space is divided into two levels, but it actually feels much more like one continuous space upon reaching the upper level. Here one is granted a fuller understand of the building as a whole: a couple small windows and a wide balcony provide points of visual connection between upper and lower levels. The lack of windows on the upper level focuses one's attention downward and makes the whole space feel rather womb-like. When I visited, the music and dance of performance artist Ana Sanovi enlivened the space even more. Oh beautiful, beautiful Paraty has lodged itself deep into my heart. There are two important things to note about our trip to Paraty. The first is that we had the good fortune to visit during FLIP, the Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty, a five-day literary festival that descends on Paraty each year. We arrived in the evening and the town was decked out in tents, decorations, food vendors, street musicians, pop-up exhibitions, cachaça samplings... My evening photos are horrible (fault of the little point-and-shoot camera) but I am including them anyway to give you a sense of the scene. The other important piece of our experience in Paraty is that we were there with my dear friend Daniella Costa, who I met last summer when she was doing research at Penn, and who has been an incredibly gracious host to me here in Brazil. Daniella's dissertation addresses historic preservation in Brazil and the United States, and Paraty is one of her major case studies. It was a huge treat to be there with her to guide us through the historic streets. Most of the colonial buildings in the historic center of Paraty date to the 18th century with 19th century additions like the ironwork and the lighting. The town reminded me in some ways of Charleston, South Carolina -- especially the old neighborhood south of Broad -- in its scale and its peninsular orientation to the sea. In Paraty, though, the buildings are brilliant white with different colors of trim -- quite gorgeous. I was surprised to learn from Daniella that the town was repainted this way in the 1960s! Originally the façades were solid colors, painted with pigments naturally occurring in the area like earthy greens, yellows, and pinks. Blue would have been the most exclusive color. We await her dissertation for more info on this! The town was built to flood with the tide. Daniella told us there are two explanations given for this: either it was intended as a method of street cleaning, or it was a mistake! I am completely obsessed with the doors and windows that open in multiple ways allowing for different configurations in the same wall opening. Aside from the amazingly well-preserved colonial streets, the churches are what I wanted to learn from in Paraty. Igreja Santa Rita dos Pardos Libertos commands the waterfront view of Paraty and many a postcard view as well. It dates to 1722, and was a space where freed people of mixed ancestry worshipped. Today it functions primarily as a museum of religious art, but it is still used for mass during the festival of Santa Rita (which is the weekend after FLIP!). I couldn't take photos inside, but I managed to capture one of the most interesting elements to me -- this "door within a door" at the entrance to the church. I asked what this was for, and learned that it was a wind screen. Originally, worship was candlelit, and these doors could be closed to block the wind while still allowing the main exterior doors of the church to remain open. Igreja Nossa Senhora do Rosário e São Benedito dos Homens Pretos, built in 1725, was originally a church for the enslaved community in Paraty. Sadly, sadly it was closed (even though it is supposed to be open on Saturdays!) and pleading with the tourist office in shaky Portuguese didn't do the trick this time. Still, seeing the structure from the exterior was crucial for beginning to understand how different communities would have experienced urban zones and spaces in Paraty. Here is Matriz Nossa Senhora dos Remédios, the church for the elite white population, dating back to 1787. Look at this wavy baroque entrance and choir balcony! Above the altar are gallery-level openings that struck me as similar to the windows of the domestic architecture in the town. These were places for the most elite families to view the service. (I've seen these in multiple colonial churches thus far on my trip.) Capela de Nossa Senhora das Dores from 1800 was for elite white young ladies of Paraty. It is small, but has a commanding view of the waterfront. The interior was heavily restored. When we were there it was home to a pop-up exhibition of the English Shakespeare House for FLIP. Finally, on a different note, another interesting aspect of Paraty that Daniella illuminated for us is that today there is very little interaction between the historic center and the population that lives just beyond it -- the "real" Paraty. Wealthy families from elsewhere in Brazil are buying the historic real estate and running the programming at places like the Cultural Center. Some locals who live outside the city center don't actually need to come into the historic center for their daily routine. A common ailment, I think, in historic zones that are somewhere between a museum and a usable built environment.
I can't wait to come back to Paraty someday! In pursuit of the practice of the important Brazilian concept of "relax" (pronunciation: "hay-lash-a"), Steve and I headed to Ilha Grande for a couple of days. Ilha Grande is about a 3-hour trip south of Rio de Janeiro (or a little longer if you're stuck in Rio's rush hour traffic, ahem). The island is comprised of tropical beaches and pristine, nearly untouched Atlantic rainforest. This is because before it was packed with pousadas, Ilha Grande played host to pirates, lepers, and then some of Brazil's most violent incarcerated people. In the 1990s, after the island's penitentiary was destroyed, a very eco-conscious version of tourism kicked into high gear. Vila do Abraão is the tiny fishing village that has the lion's share of amenities on the island. Streets are sand, and there are no ATMs on the island. Though it is entirely tourist-focused, we found it to be relatively uncommercialized. We hiked 6km to Praia Lopes Mendes, considered to be Ilha Grande's best beach. I may have been swayed by the clouds that rolled in once we reached Lopes Mendes, but I also really liked the tiny, secluded beaches we passed along the way in Palmas, and Pouso. The vegetation in the forest was so thick that views of the island were often hard to come by. No water taxis were serving Lopes Mendes the day we were there because the waves were too rough, so we hiked back to Pouso, grabbed a caipirinha on a floating bar (is this real life?) and waited for "Lambroghini" the boat to take us back to Vila do Abraão. We also did a shorter hike nearer to town, checking out the black sand of Praia Preto, a still-functioning aqueduct, and the ruins of the Lazareto prison. Lazareto was used as a place to quarantine European immigrants to Brazil from 1884-1913 in an attempt to stop the spread of cholera. From 1940-54 it was a federal prison, and it was demolished in 1963. Paradise never looked so ominous. As our ferry pulled out of the dock, a thick cloud of fog settled in. I give you "Abraão gray:"
Pedregulho is a vast complex of housing and communal amenities that was designed and built between 1946 and 1952 in Rio's São Cristóvão neighborhood. Affonso Eduardo Reidy conceived of the project alongside engineer Carmen Portinho -- the third female engineer to graduate in Brazil in 1926, and the country's first urbanist. Hamilton Marinho, president of the Associação de Moradores do Conjunto Prefeito Mendes de Moraes, or the residents' neighborhood association, graciously took Daniella, Steve, and me on a tour of Pedregulho. Hamilton was born and raised in Pedregulho and has lived in the complex for more than 50 years. In the 1940s, a new interest in improved social housing was brewing in Rio due to the increased visual presence of favelas in the city, which had existed since the early 20th century. In 1946, the Departamento de Habitação Popular (DHP) was created with the goal of implementing more effective housing solutions for lower income communities. At the direction of Antonio Arlindo Laviolla, Reidy and Portinho were appointed to the DHP's initial design team. Portinho was deeply interested in self-sufficient housing projects, i.e., a complex with its own amenities as Pedregulho would come to have. Laviolla disliked this approach, but Reidy supported it. When Portinho assumed the directorship of DHP in 1948, such a plan could finally move forward. Hamilton explained to us that Pedregulho was built on federal land for state government employees. Originally, the residents did not pay rent. Rather, a portion of the housing cost was deducted from their salaries. They were meant to work within a 5km radius of Pedregulho, attempting a model for live-work transportation efficiency in Rio. When the capital of Brazil moved from Rio to Brasilia, Pedregulho's ownership was caught in limbo. Residents who live here now do so with permission, they do not actually own or rent the units, and they are fighting for the opportunity to own their homes. Reidy and Portinho started construction with the project's shared zones to ensure that they would be built. In 1950, two residential structures with 56 split-level apartments, a market, a laundry building, a health center, gardens landscaped by Robert Burle Marx, and a mural at the health center by Anísio Medeiros were all inaugurated. Below is a photo of the model that was in Hamilton's office. This phase of completion refers to the 4 buildings on the righthand side. From top to bottom (not including the curvilinear structure), they are the two apartment building blocks 1 and 2, the health center, and the original laundry and market areas. In 1951, a school, swimming pool, locker room, gymnasium, and a mural by Portinari on the gym's facade opened as well. These structures are at the bottom left of the model photo. Finally, in 1958, the most striking structure of the complex, apartment "Block A" was opened with 272 apartments. "Block A" curves along the Morro de Pedregulho, mimicking the form of the land. Hoisted on pilotis (a stilt-like column pioneered by Le Corbusier), Reidy's design intent was to preserve the natural profile of the hillside and its vegetation. It is often said that Brazilian modern architecture reflects the curves of the local landscape. Though this might seem like an over-generalization, Reidy's social housing project Pedregulho does just that. We spent most of the tour in Block A, which has seven floors. The third floor is an open communal space with virtually no walls. An interior street of sorts, this zone houses the complex's administration offices, and some amenities such as a barber shop and a chapel. When I asked if people use the space, Hamilton said yes they do, for parties or cookouts, that kind of thing. But he also said residents would do well to use it more often. "It's like living at the beach but never going," he said. Floors 1 and 2 of Block A contain single room efficiency apartments, and floors 4, 5, 6, and 7 have larger units from two to four rooms. With the entrance off the street at the third floor level, in theory, residents need only ascend or descend a maximum of two floors. This permitted the omission of an elevator in the complex, decreasing the cost of the project. From photos, the building looks like an "object building," a large massing of an abstract form. I was struck by how sensitive the curvilinear shape of Block A was when moving through the third floor mezzanine space; the scale of the space seemed neither too open nor too claustrophobic, and the curve of the building allows one to constantly orient oneself within the complex and the surrounding landscape. Hamilton invited us to visit his own apartment so we could get a sense of the units. The "back" facade, or the facade that faces uphill, is covered in walls of cobogó, or open bricks, that allow for the mediation of sunlight as well as ventilation. Access to each apartment is through an external corridor in this in-between zone; Reidy avoided internal corridors that would require mechanical ventilation and lighting. We also stopped by the gymnasium and school. Hamilton told us that paths used to connect the apartments to these shared spaces, however, they were closed due to security concerns. So Hamilton kindly drove us down the hill. School was in session -- children from Pedregulho, as well as the surrounding area attend. It was so exciting to see the structure in use! Other portions of the complex, such as the laundry area have not fared so well and are in disrepair. In 2015, major renovations were completed of Pedregulho. These images from the neighborhood association's office show how the building was restored. For instance, the restoration recreated the original regular pattern of the cobogó bricks, and air conditioners have been accommodated. The wooden (!) brises-soleil were sadly left unrestored due to a lack of funds. The building was praised on an international level. Le Corbusier, on his last trip to Rio de Janeiro in 1962 visited Pedregulho and said, "I have never had the opportunity to undertake a work as complete as this one that Brazilians have achieved with Pedregulho." Though the building is often considered a failure in lower income housing (having largely to do with the "self-contained neighborhood" aspect), for Hamilton and the 1,000 or so residents who live here now, it seems there is a strong sense of identity with Pedregulho as their home, and a hope for ownership in the future might strengthen that even further.
Wladimir Alves de Souza (1908-1994) was a professor of architectural theory at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro who also maintained an architectural practice among Rio's elite. Typically, Alves de Souza would design projects in a variety of styles according to the programmatic needs of the building, from eclectic to neoclassical. His 1957 home for Raymundo de Castro Maya, an industrialist, art patron and collector in the modernist style is, thus, an exception. Perhaps Alves de Souza thought that a fitting setting for art at this time was a modern one. The building's floors are subtly sited on the hillside in Santa Teresa. Social areas are clustered on the ground floor and give onto the Roberto Burle Marx-landscaped gardens by way of large picture windows and sliding doors. The openings, while characteristic of modern architecture, seem oversized in comparison to some of the 18th and 19th-century art objects inside. The second floor was originally bedrooms. The building now houses a museum of Castro Maya's art collection, the Museu Chácara do Céu. Since Castro Maya was particularly interested in art related to Brazilian history, one of the most prominent parts of the collection are 19th-century landscape paintings of Rio de Janeiro by artists such as Nicholas Antoine Taunay (1755-1830). Taunay was one of the main artists involved in the French Artistic Mission, a group of French artists and architects who came to Rio de Janeiro in 1816. At that time, Rio was the capital city of the Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves because the royal court of Portugal had been relocated to Rio in 1808 due to the invasion of Portugal by Napoleon Bonaparte. Their mission was to establish the Escola Real de Ciências, Artes e Ofícios (Royal School of Sciences, Arts and Crafts), which would later become the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes (National School of Fine Arts). The Castro Maya collection also houses a series of watercolors of plants and fruit by Jean-Baptiste Debret, another artist from the French Artistic Mission Group. The watercolors date from 1818 to 1830. The surrounding neighborhood of Santa Teresa is incredibly charming, with houses built into the hills, winding cobblestone streets, and a profusion of street art. On the way back down, we stumbled upon the famous Escadaria Selarón. The colorful stairs, covered in mosaics by Chilean-born artist Jorge Selarón, revealed themselves to us as we wound down the steps into neighborhood of Lapa.
As the narrative is typically told, the Ministry of Health and Education building, designed and built between 1937 and 1943 at the direction of President Getúlo Vargas and the minister of health and education at the time, Gustavo Capanema, represents the germ of Western European modernist ideals in Brazilian architecture. After a failed design competition, Lucio Costa was commissioned to design the building. In 1936, he assembled a team of Brazilian modernists to take on the project: Oscar Niemeyer, Alfonso Reidy, Jorge Moreira, Carlos Leão, Ernâni Vasconcelos. When Costa was dissatisfied with the first result from the team, he asked the government permission to bring in Le Corbusier as a consultant on the project. Under the guise of a lecture series, Le Corbusier visited Brazil for four weeks, consulting on the Ministry of Health and Education building and several other projects. Such an endeavor gave Le Corbusier a chance to demonstrate the "universality" of his design principles. Indeed, the building displays Le Corbusier's typical pilotis, roof gardens, and brises-soleil. According to Lucio Costa, it was the first time the glass curtain wall was used in Brazil, and in South America in general. Out of all the architects on the team, Niemeyer worked the most closely with Le Corbusier. As Costa put it, "Le Corbusier's greatest legacy was Niemeyer himself." The building met much local criticism, but influential institutions championed it on the international scene, including the Museum of Modern Art in its 1943 exhibition Brazil Builds, and the New York Times. The building commands an entire city block, but opens up much of its ground space to a public garden, landscaped -- as so many of the modernist projects are -- by Roberto Burle Marx. Burle Marx made use of native Brazilian plants at a time when they were not considered worthy of such projects. The ground level is also graced by Cândido Portinari's lively blue and white tile murals on the facades. At the moment, the building is under renovation, which allowed me a close-up view with the blue brises-soleil that are being removed, restored, and re-installed, among other restoration efforts.
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