BAROQUE


Arguably, the built environment in Brazil begins its story some 60,000 years ago with the cave sites and rock paintings now preserved in the Parque Nacionale da Serva da Capivara. It comes bang up to date with Brazilian architects Aleph Zero and Rosenbaum who won the 2018 RIBA International Prize for their Children Village on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. In between, Brazil offers baroque grandeur, pastel-painted rococo and some of the finest mid-century modernism in world architecture.


Leading Brazilian architects including Ruy Ohtake (Hotel Unique, São Paulo), and Paulo Mendes da Rocha (the Brazilian Sculpture Museum, São Paulo), as well as the late Affonso Eduardo Reidy (Rio de Janeiro’s Museum of Modern Art) and Lina Bo Bardi (São Paulo Museum of Art), have helped make Brazil a dynamic destination for anyone interested in seeing how a modernist wave, amplified by the vision of Oscar Niemeyer, threw off the traditions of European colonialism. Not that there aren’t also architectural delights to be found from the 17th and 18th centuries, when the Portuguese influence brought baroque and ornate rococo flourishes to the brightly painted facades of Brazil’s emerging cities.


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There are gems to discover, for example the church of São Francisco de Assis in Ouro Preto by Antonio Aleijadinho, considered the most important Brazilian architect of the colonial age. On the coast near the modern sprawl of Recife is the brightly coloured old town of Olinda, whose candy-coloured houses contrast with the grandeur of the monasteries, churches and convents built by the Portuguese who founded the city in 1535.


Salvador, especially its old quarter known as Pelourinho, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, remains the best place to see colonial baroque and rococo architecture. Salvador was the colonial capital of Brazil until 1763, which has left a legacy of fine private residences, churches and old official buildings. The pale lilac Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos, known as The Slave Church, stands on a steep cobbled street in the heart of Pelourinho. With its two elaborate bell towers crowning a facade that combines rococo plasterwork with carved baroque stonework and pilasters, the church unites not only European architectural fashions of the day, but Afro-Brazilian culture as well.


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