The shell of a salon-society mansion, rebuilt in glass and steel as a public viewpoint.
Landmark buildingParque das Ruínas sits on Rua Murtinho Nobre at one of the highest points of Santa Teresa, next door to the Chácara do Céu museum. What stands today is the masonry shell of a 19th-century mansion threaded with walkways, stairs and a glass-and-steel core, run by the city as a free cultural center with one of the best open views in Rio — Guanabara Bay, Centro and the Sugarloaf in a single sweep.
The surrounding blocks are classic Santa Teresa: cobbled lanes, the bonde tram line, artist studios and restored casarões. The park hosts exhibitions and weekend music, and it anchors the walking circuit between Largo do Curvelo and Largo do Guimarães.
Address: Rua Murtinho Nobre 169, Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro
The mansion was built in the Empire era for the Murtinho Nobre family and had its famous years in the 1910s–1930s, when Laurinda Santos Lobo inherited it and turned it into one of the city's busiest salons, hosting writers, musicians and visiting artists. After her death in 1946 the property was willed away, never occupied, and stripped over decades of abandonment.
The city landmarked the ruin in the early 1990s and brought in architects Ernani Freire and Sônia Lopes, whose restoration deliberately kept the building as a ruin — new steel and glass set against the bare brick. It reopened as a public cultural center on 12 December 1997.
Source: Rio Memórias — Parque das Ruínas
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