107 landmark Rio buildings, researched in depth.
Copacabana's most storied address, beside the Copacabana Palace
Where Tom Jobim composed the soundtrack of bossa nova
The grande dame of the Copacabana beachfront, open since 1923
Where Clarice Lispector wrote her final novels
The last Brazilian home of the "Brazilian Bombshell"
On the street where bossa nova was born.
Right on Leblon's beachfront avenue.
Three oceanfront towers named for Brazilian artists.
A resort-scale gated compound in Barra.
Two apartments per floor, between Posto 11 and 12.
The green-tiled tower on Vieira Souto.
One full-floor apartment on each floor, on Vieira Souto.
The last home built on the bay for 53 years.
Lagoon-front Lagoa, with Cristo over the rooftops.
Art Deco out front, a hidden Burle Marx garden behind.
Three blocks, three palace names, one Av. Atlântica address.
A Sérgio Bernardes condominium on the Joá cliffs.
Bayfront Urca, at the foot of Pão de Açúcar.
The old Rede Globo HQ, turned into Jardim Botânico apartments.
Neoclassical Laranjeiras at the edge of Cosme Velho.
The first residential building on Avenida Atlântica.
The 'Dakota Carioca' — Praia do Flamengo's heritage landmark.
Beachfront Leblon, 16 floors of full-plate Delfim Moreira.
Rio's priciest Lagoa launch yet.
One apartment per floor on Leblon's beach avenue.
Beachfront Leblon at the Ipanema end of Delfim Moreira.
One block off Ipanema beach, near the Vieira Souto corner.
Pre-war Copacabana beachfront, near the Palace.
Eight condominiums on a protected Barra headland.
Leblon's biggest complex — 40 buildings, 2,251 flats.
Three Lúcio Costa blocks set inside a Burle Marx park.
First new building on Av. Atlântica in about 40 years.
276 studios a block from the beach, made famous by a 2002 film.
Reidy's 260m serpentine block on pilotis — a modernist landmark.
Barra's best-known mansion condominium, a 370,000 m² gated enclave between Avenida das Américas and the Marapendi lagoon.
The Rio 2016 Athletes' Village — 31 towers and 3,604 apartments — converted into Barra's largest planned residential district.
Beachfront 1990s condominium on Avenida Lúcio Costa with a private golf course, helipad and Burle Marx landscaping.
One of Barra's founding planned condominiums, laid out in 1976 with houses, lagoon-side towers and half a million square meters of green.
Recreio's gated 1990s residential pocket — roughly twenty condominiums sharing a square, an association and a family routine.
A 254,000 m² gated house condominium on the green edge of Recreio, known for big lots and celebrity neighbors.
Oscar Niemeyer's 1996 saucer on the Boa Viagem headland — the building that put Niterói on the architectural map.
An 1872 Portuguese merchant's mansion in Ingá, tiled floor to roof in Porto azulejos and IPHAN-listed since 1974.
The former British embassy that became Rio's official city hall palace.
An 1850 mansion on Rua São Clemente, Brazil's first public house-museum.
An 1866 neoclassical landmark that went from orphanage to art museum to private school.
Botafogo's signature 1990s glass office complex on the bayfront, twin towers crowned with gilded globes.
A 1971 market hall on a former tram garage, now the neighborhood's food and nightlife hub.
Sérgio Bernardes's 1978 hillside condominium of 60 stacked houses, often mistaken for a favela by design.
The 1920s waterfront palace that was Brazil's most famous casino, now a design school.
A monumental neoclassical complex on Avenida Pasteur, home of Brazil's national school for the blind.
The shell of a salon-society mansion, rebuilt in glass and steel as a public viewpoint.
Castro Maya's modernist hilltop house, kept as he left it — art collection included.
An 1850s coffee-farm mansion working today as one of Brazil's best-rated hotels.
Latin America's first skyscraper, standing over Praça Mauá since 1929.
The building that put Brazilian modernism on the world map.
Rio's opera house since 1909, modeled on the Paris Opera.
An 1894 tearoom whose Belgian-mirror salon is a city monument in its own right.
The 1743 governors' palace where colony, kingdom and empire were run.
The art deco movie palace of Praça Saens Peña.
An imperial-era military school on the old Conde de Bonfim estate.
The neighborhood's social club since 1915, built around a casarão on Conde de Bonfim.
An imperial school opened by Dom Pedro II on the Boulevard 28 de Setembro.
Copacabana's best-known Art Deco apartment block, famous for the mermaid carved over its front door.
A 1932 Art Deco survivor with sharp-cut balconies that nearly fell to the wrecking ball in 1995.
One of Copacabana's oldest apartment buildings, built in 1927 and heritage-listed since 1994.
The famous 'Barata Ribeiro 200' — a 1954 mega-building with 500-plus apartments and a story big enough for the stage.
The 30-story slab at Posto 5 — the tallest hotel on the Copacabana beachfront since 1977.
Leme's black monolith — the tallest tower on the beach, famous for its New Year's Eve fireworks waterfall.
Leme's original beachfront grand hotel, open on Avenida Atlântica since 1964.
A 1947 Art Deco pair on the Flamengo waterfront by the same architect who built the Biarritz.
The 1950 hotel built next to the presidential palace, now being repurposed after seven decades of service.
The first building ever raised on the Flamengo waterfront — a 1925 Parisian block by Joseph Gire.
The 1918 turreted 'little castle' on the waterfront, now a municipal cultural center.
Brazil's presidential palace from 1897 to 1960, now the Museu da República.
An 1896 neoclassical block on Rua do Catete with an IPHAN-protected facade, still running as a hotel.
Brazil's first five-star hotel, opened in 1922 and now reborn as a residential building.
Oscar Niemeyer's 1968 media palace on Rua do Russel, with gardens by Burle Marx.
Princess Isabel's former palace, today the seat of the Rio de Janeiro state government.
The Guinle family's 1913 French palace inside Parque Guinle, now the governor's official residence.
A heritage-listed square of colorful neocolonial houses backing onto the Tijuca Forest.
The 1884 cog-railway station that anchors Cosme Velho — Brazil's first tourist railway, heritage-listed with its entire line.
The only residential building on the Vieira Souto beachfront designed by Oscar Niemeyer.
A 1910 beachfront mansion turned state cultural center — the last of its kind on Vieira Souto.
Álvaro Vital Brazil's 1961 glass box on the Ipanema beachfront.
A 1965 low-rise on Vieira Souto with only 15 apartments, some spanning over 1,400 m².
An 11-story Vieira Souto tower of full-floor 433 m² apartments and a 935 m² penthouse.
The 1974 Arpoador Inn, rebuilt by Bernardes Arquitetura and reopened in 2019 with no fence between lobby and sand.
The 1966 commercial gallery that became the home base of Brazilian surf culture.
Cyrela's 2021 launch — the first new residential development in Arpoador in a decade.
Oscar Niemeyer's first built work, a 1937 modernist landmark a block from the lagoon.
Ruy Ohtake's wave-terraced apartment building at Epitácio Pessoa 1000.
The Navy officers' club that occupies its own island in the middle of the lagoon.
An award-winning 1940s modernist apartment building with Burle Marx panels.
The 1920s mansion around a courtyard pool, now Rio's visual arts school.
A colonial-era manor in the Horto, now the Botanical Garden's graduate school.
Niemeyer's cylindrical glass tower on São Conrado beach, reborn in 2016.
The curved glass house Oscar Niemeyer built for himself in the forest above São Conrado.
A 1968 cliff mansion in Joá turned into a seven-suite boutique hotel.
Leblon's benchmark beachfront tower from the mid-1970s.
Leblon's beachfront hotel tower, being reborn as Rio's first Four Seasons.
One apartment per floor on the quieter end of Delfim Moreira.
An Ataulfo de Paiva classic with a place in Rio's cultural history.
A banker's modernist house turned one of Rio's best cultural centers.
Affonso Reidy's curved modernist housing block above the Gávea tunnel.
An 1820s neoclassical solar on the PUC-Rio campus.
Rio's only hotel built directly on the sand, at the foot of Vidigal.
A design hotel and cultural hub at the top of Vidigal.