A day in Rio de Janeiro

Well, with one day in Rio de Janeiro - forget it. It is just not possible to see it all. So in order to give myself a good picture of Rio, and get the most out of the hours I had there, between my arrival with the bus and my flight to Europe, the plan was - get a cab from the rodoviaria to Praça Mauá, walk, breathe in and absorb as much as possible. Can't never be a wrong attitude when you visit a place. Valéria, a partner at the office, a carioca girl, had given me some indications earlier on where to go and walk in Rio, to perceive the time line of the architectural styles, developped as the city grew under different external influences. When I walked there, I wasn't alwasy aware of what I was looking at, its history, its description - even though I had my Lonely Planet with me, I just decided to walk and absorb. Então... here we go, Rio, here I come.

From Praça Mauá, walking down Avenida Rio Branco and Avenida Presidente António Carlos, it is high buildings (residential and offices) interrupted by historical pieces of architecture. The Igreja da Candelária, Centro Cultural Banco do Brazil, around Praça Pio X. The Paço Imperal with the Portuguese colonial reminescences, the University with celebrating student, the Igreja São José around Praça Quinze de Novembro. Some buildings here, such as the University and church-like edifices seem more under an European influence, between Renaissance and Baroque, with heavily decorated and ornamented facades. Then getting closer to the water, towers that are close to elegant emerge here and there, a higher skyline is visible. It is actually interesting to start the Rio visit from 'inside' when all the preconcepts tend to depict the city as 'the sea, the beach, the Cristo Redentor and the pão de açucar'.

1: How lucky can you be.. cute beetle in front of the precious Igreja de Candelária - 2: Street view of real estate mixtures (Av. Pres. A. Carlos)

Paço Imperal

An example of things I did not know walking there is that Princesa Isabela declared the freedom of slaves on the steps of the Paço Imperal, in 1888!

Av. Pres. A. Carlos, the time line avenue taking you from the old historic religious and institutional buildings of Rio, down to the bay of Glória

Down to the Modern Art museum, I reach the Parque do Flamengo - huge linear parc along the seaside in which lies the museum and other pavillon-like buildings, it offers a fantastic view to the Pão de açucar, the sea and starting archipellago landscape, boats sailing, planes landing in the local airport, the tiny distant Cristo Redentor just visible and watching over you from somewhere behind between a church tower and some trees. It is still early, between poor morning dwellers, fresh joggers and bikers, two guys training capoeira under the concrete slab of the museum and hysteric students taking pictures in their robes (obviously freshly graduated ones). As I walk down the parc, the city seems to emerge, with the sun raising from the cloudymorning. It gets hot - they sell Agua de coco, over there...

Reaching the Parque do Flamengo, under the concrete slab of the MAM

1: the fantastic concrete structure of the MAM - 2: Cristo Redentor is watching you

Just amazing and beautiful....

Views to the city from Flamengo

Rio and the sea

Agua de coco!

Another thing I did not know before reading it in the taxi leaving for the airport: the Parque do Flamengo had been designed by the same landscape architect who worked on Brasília. It is a fine example of Brasilian modernist landscape design/planning, which strikes me since I had somehow considered the modernists to valorise nature and plant their buildings in a dramatic scenery where nature and built environment offered some kind of strong relation, but never that they actually designed that nature. And the Flamengo parc revealed a very rich design, with various spaces - bigger and wider, smaller and more intimate, high and vertical, low and cosy... The use of vegetation types, paths snaking their way through and around, the differences in levels and many details in general, made it an agreable and user-friendly parc.

Vegetation and atmospheres in Parque do Flamengo

Reaching back to the inner center, I walk down rua da Glória, passing some squares and largo. Viewpoints to fantasticly decorated buildings, heavy ones, delicate ones, old ones, popping up between more shag-like housings and restaurants... Rich and various. It is beautiful and very photo-friendly, but also you can't help wonder how do those people live in what looks like starting favellas at the end of the street going up towards the mountain... It is a variety that is as beautiful, exciting and rich, as it is striking, concerning and frustrating.

Largo da Machado - playing card and chess under the trees

1: Urban fitness on Largo da Machado - 2: Curving benches in front of Colégio Estadual

Architecture style condensed time line - where ever you look you get those contrasting sights

Side street to rua do Catete



Impressions along the way...People, buildings, cars, mixtures and contrasts of things hidden and appearing as you walk - the serial vision of G. Cullen experienced in its full meaning

I continue towards Arcos da Lapa, that I had been presented to once in a 'urban planning and issues' class at the architecture school. This district has a long history of transformations and renovations through different phases of the city's development. From being the fine and wealthier residence area in Rio back in the 19th century, with a darker period of neglect, the district is today known to be the more alternative, arty and heated neighbourhood - with theaters, bars, clubs...

Arcos da Lapa

The white arcs and the high rise office/business center behind, with the remarkable Petrobras (cubic office building excavated like a proper 3D model)

Behind Arcos da Lapa passes larger streets with high office buildings. I would identify it as the CBD but then, it was probably more of an ealier CBD, the actual one located more North. But anyway the contrast is interesting between Lapa, the white arcs of the old viaduct, some kind of crowded largo where Afro-religious music was coming out loud, the long straight streets between the business and financial district of high and fat squared building towers, and then the Centro again, with the Municipal theater, the National library and the Municipal Senate (Câmara Municipal) on Praça Floriano. I end my tour by passing the Passeio Público, Praça Paris and heading one more time down to the water and Flamengo parc.

From the lively Arcos da Lapa to Petrobras and little CBD empty of people...

...and back to the squares of the center - here the Municipal theater


1: Praça Floriano on a Sunday afternoon - always with the decorative pavements... - 2: National library

...and back. 1:Passeio Público - 2: Spider in the parc

A last surprise awaits close to the MAM (Modern Art Museum) where a group of musicians are repeating the rythms of Carioca carnaval samba under the trees, facing the sea!