Palacete do Parque Lage — Jardim Botânico, Rio de Janeiro

About the building

The mansion at the heart of Parque Lage sits at Rua Jardim Botânico 414, at the foot of Corcovado with the Christ statue directly above it. Built around an internal courtyard with a swimming pool, it is one of the most photographed buildings in Rio — film sets, fashion shoots and the Snoop Dogg/Pharrell 'Beautiful' video have all used the colonnaded pool court.

Since 1975 the building has housed the Escola de Artes Visuais (EAV), a public visual arts school, with a café open to anyone in the former reception rooms. The surrounding park is public and run by the city, with trails into the Tijuca forest starting behind the house. For residents of Jardim Botânico it functions as a backyard: coffee, exhibitions and forest in one gate.

Address: Rua Jardim Botânico 414, Jardim Botânico, Rio de Janeiro

History

The land was a colonial sugar mill site and later a 19th-century estate with romantic-style gardens by English landscaper John Tyndale. In 1927–1929 the industrialist Henrique Lage had the mansion rebuilt by Italian architect Mario Vodret as a home for his wife, the opera singer Gabriella Besanzoni, with Italian marble and interior painting by Salvador Payols Sabaté.

IPHAN, the federal heritage institute, listed the park and its buildings in 1957. The estate became a public park in the 1960s, and the arts school moved into the mansion in 1975. A restoration completed in recent years keeps the building in active public use.

Notable residents

Henrique Lage Shipping and industry magnate who rebuilt the mansion in the late 1920s and lived on the estate that now bears his name.
Gabriella Besanzoni Italian opera contralto and Henrique Lage's wife; the mansion was rebuilt as her home and was known as Villa Gabriella.

Source: Wikipedia — Parque Lage