A heritage-listed square of colorful neocolonial houses backing onto the Tijuca Forest.
Landmark buildingThe Largo do Boticário, at Rua Cosme Velho 822, is a small cobbled square of brightly painted neocolonial houses set against the edge of the Tijuca Forest, with a stream running past and centenary trees overhead. The houses carry Portuguese azulejos, hand-painted roof tiles and pé-de-moleque stone paving — the most photographed residential corner of Cosme Velho.
The square is named for Joaquim José da Silva Souto, the royal apothecary (boticário) who owned the land in the 1830s. The houses are private residences; the square itself is open and sits a short walk from the Corcovado train station.
Address: Rua Cosme Velho 822, Cosme Velho, Rio de Janeiro
The largo has existed since 1879, but its current look dates to the 1920s, when Edmundo Bittencourt, founder of the Correio da Manhã newspaper, bought up the lots and rebuilt the houses in the neocolonial style then being championed as a national alternative to European fashions.
The ensemble was declared a protected cultural area in 1986 and the houses were heritage-listed by the state institute INEPAC in 1990, freezing one of the few intact picturesque squares left in the South Zone.
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