Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
Museu de Arte Moderna
Av Infante Dom Henrique 85, Parque do Flamengo • Tues-Fri noon-6pm, Sat, Sun & public holidays 11am-6pm • R$12 •
T
21 3883 5600,
W
mamrio.com.br •
M
Cinelândia
South of the Passeio Público, a larger park, the northern end of the Parque do
Flamengo (see p.77) is home to the glass-and-concrete
Museu de Arte Moderna
,
designed by the Brazilian architect and urbanist Affonso Reidy and inaugurated in
1958. The museum's collection was devastated by a fire in 1978 and only reopened in
1990 following the building's restoration. The permanent collection is still small and,
despite boasting some of the great names of twentieth-century Brazilian art, extremely
weak, though visiting exhibitions are occasionally worth checking out.
Monumento aos Mortos na Segunda Guerra Mundial
Avenida Beira Mar, Parque do Flamengo • Museum: Tues-Sun 10am-4pm • Free •
T
21 2240 1333 •
M
Cinelândia
Near Museu de Arte Moderna in the northern section of the Parque do Flamengo, the
Monumento aos Mortos na Segunda Guerra
Mundial
, or
Monumento aos Pracinhas
, an
elegant tall canopy over the tomb of an unknown soldier, and, set apart, a statue of a
soldier, sailor and airman, commemorates the 462 Brazilian troops who died fighting
for the Allies in World War II. Their remains were expatriated from Italy, where they
were killed, to be buried here when the monument was completed in 1960. The small
museum underneath exhibits some soldiers' kit and uniform.
Lapa
West of Cinelândia,
Lapa
is an old
bairro
with a faded charm.
Carioca
historian Brasil
Gerson, in his 1954
História das Ruas do Rio de Janeiro
, describes it as having been an
“area of cabarets and bawdy houses, the haunt of scoundrels, gamblers, swashbucklers
and inverts, and the walkway of poor, fallen women”, but until the mid-seventeenth
century, it was just a beach, known as the “Spanish Sands”. More recently, things have
been looking up, with the area blossoming into Rio's top spot for an evening's drinking,
especially at weekends, when all its
bars
(see p.103) spill out onto the street.
Nova Catedral Metropolitana
Av Chile 245 • Daily 7.30am-6pm • Free •
M
Carioca and Cinelândia
South of Largo da Carioca, the unmistakeable shape of the
Nova Catedral
Metropolitana
rises up like some futuristic teepee. Built between 1964 and 1976, it's
an impressive piece of engineering, whatever you think of the architecture: the Morro
de Santo Antônio was levelled to make way for the cathedral's construction, and the
thousands of tonnes of resulting soil were used for the land reclamation project that
gave rise to the Parque do Flamengo (see p.77). The cathedral is 83m high with a
diameter of 104m and a capacity of 20,000 people. Inside, it feels vast, a remarkable
sense of space enhanced by the absence of supporting columns. Filtering the sunlight,
four huge stained-glass windows dominate, each measuring 20m by 60m and
corresponding to a symbolic colour scheme - ecclesiastical green, saintly red,
Catholic blue and apostolic yellow.
Arcos da Lapa (Aqueduto da Carioca)
M
Cinelândia
South of the Nova Catedral Metropolitana, a monumental Roman-style aqueduct, the
mid-eighteenth-century
Aqueduto da Carioca
(more commonly called the
Arcos da
Lapa
), was originally built to bring drinking water into the city, but was converted in
1896 to carry trams up to the hillside
bairro
of Santa Teresa (see opposite). If and when
the tram service resumes, they will start at the terminal (
terminal dos bondes
) between
the cathedral and the Largo da Carioca, behind the glass, steel and concrete
Petrobrás
building
, headquarters of the state oil company.
