The building that put Brazilian modernism on the world map.
Landmark buildingThe former Ministry of Education and Health headquarters stands on Rua da Imprensa in the Castelo district of Centro, lifted ten meters off the ground on concrete pilotis so the block underneath works as an open public plaza. It is widely counted as the first modernist building of its scale in Latin America.
The building is as much gallery as office block: Cândido Portinari's blue-tile azulejo panels at ground level, gardens by Roberto Burle Marx, sculpture by Bruno Giorgi, and one of the first large-scale uses anywhere of the brise-soleil sun-screen facade. After a decade-long restoration it has reopened to visitors.
Address: Rua da Imprensa 16, Centro, Rio de Janeiro
Commissioned by minister Gustavo Capanema and built between 1936 and 1945, it was designed by a Brazilian team led by Lúcio Costa — including Oscar Niemeyer, Affonso Eduardo Reidy and Carlos Leão — with Le Corbusier brought from Europe as consultant in 1936. The young Niemeyer's role here launched the career that later produced Brasília.
In 1943, while still under construction, New York's Museum of Modern Art singled it out as the most advanced building going up anywhere in the world. It remains federal property and a listed monument of Brazilian modernism.
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Browse all properties →Latin America's first skyscraper, standing over Praça Mauá since 1929.
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.
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