Gustavo Capanema Palace

The Gustavo Capanema Palace (in Portuguese, "Palácio Gustavo Capanema") is a modernist building in Rio de Janeiro designed by a team composed by Lucio Costa, Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Ernani Vasconcellos, Carlos Leão and Jorge Machado Moreira. Oscar Niemeyer was an intern at Costa's office, taking an important role on the design process. The design team invited the Swiss-French worldwide famous architect Le Corbusier to oversee the project. The project was delivered by the French architect in 1935-1936. Construction started in 1939 and was completed in 1943, to house the new Ministry of Education and Health of Brazil (later split into separate ministries of Education, Culture and Health). Therefore, it is sometimes referred as Ministério da Educação e Saúde Pública or MESP. In 1960 the national capital was moved to Brasília and the building was kept as an office for the ministry in Rio, which remains to nowadays. It is still regarded as a fine example of bold modernist architecture.

The official address of the Palace is Rua da Imprensa, 16, Centro - Rio de Janeiro, RJ.

The building is named after author and pedagogist Gustavo Capanema, who was the first Minister of Education of Brazil. The name "Capanema" itself means "unfertile grass" in Old Tupi. It is located in the downtown Rio area of "Castelo", where until 1903 there was a hill (Morro do Castelo), then demolished. Delighted with the shape of the Guanabara Bay, Corbusier suggested that the building should be located next to the sea, instead of inner downtown, but the government declined.

The project was extremely bold for the time. It was the first government modernist building in the Americas, and of a much larger scale than anything Le Corbusier had built until then. Completed in 1943, the building which housed the regulator and manager of Brazilian culture and cultural heritage developed all the elements of what was to become recognised as Brazilian modernist movement: it employed local materials and techniques, like the azulejos linked to the Portuguese tradition; the revolutionised Corbusian brises-soleil, made adjustable and related to the Moorish shading devices of colonial architecture; bold colours; the tropical gardens of Roberto Burle Marx; the Imperial Palm (roystonea oleraceæ), known as the Brazilian order; further allusions to the icons of the Brazilian landscape; and the integrated, specially commissioned works of Brazilian artists.

Film

There is a footage of the setting of the first stone of the building, supposedly shot by Humberto Mauro, the most important Brazilian filmmaker of the time and the first Brazilian to use sound in film. In those scenes, minister Gustavo Capanema is shown delivering a speech with a synchronized sound. Also can be seen poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade, intellectual Roquette Pinto, among others. The footage is currently kept at the CTAv - Centro Técnico Audiovisual (Audiovisual Technical Center) archive, in Rio de Janeiro. They were included in the feature length documentary "Pampulha ou a invenção do mar de Minas", directed by Oswaldo Caldeira.

Books

*BRUAND, Yves; "Arquitetura contemporânea no Brasil"; São Paulo: Editora Perspectiva, 1981, ISBN 8527301148
*CAVALCANTI, Lauro. "Quando o Brasil era moderno : guia de arquitetura 1928-1960". Rio de Janeiro: Aeroplano, 2001.
*COMAS, Carlos Eduardo Dias. "Precisões Brasileiras". Paris: Tese de Doutorado, 2002.
*COMAS, Carlos Eduardo Dias. "Protótipo e monumento, um ministério, o ministério." Projeto. ago. 1987, n. 102: p. 136-149.
*COSTA, Lucio. "Lucio Costa: registro de uma vivencia". São Paulo: Editora UNB/Empresa das Artes, 1995.
*COSTA, Lucio. "Edificio do Ministério da Educação e Saude." AU-Arquitetura e Urbanismo. Rio de Janeiro. jul./ago. 1939: p. 543-551.
*COSTA, Lucio. "Ministério, da participação de Baumgart à revelação de Niemeyer." Projeto. ago. 1987, n. 102: p. 158-160.
*HARRIS, Elizabeth D. "Le Corbusier: Riscos Brasileiros". São Paulo: Nobel, 1987.
*LISSOVSKY, Maurício e Paulo Sérgio Moraes de Sá (organizadores). "Colunas da educação: a construção do Ministério da Educação e Saúde(1935-1945)." Rio de Janeiro: MINC/IPHAN, 1996.
*MINDLIN, Henrique Ephim. "Arquitetura moderna no Brasil". Rio de Janeiro: Aeroplano Editora, 2000.
*Revista PDF "Concurso de ante-projetos para o Ministério d Educação e Saúde Pública." Revista da Diretoria de Engenharia (PDF). set. 1935: p. 510.
*VASCONCELLOS, Juliano Caldas de. "Concreto Armado, Arquitetura Moderna, Escola Carioca: levantamentos e notas." Dissertação (Mestrado em Arquitetura) - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (PROPAR), 2004 313p.
*XAVIER, Alberto. "Arquitetura Moderna no Rio de Janeiro". São Paulo: Pini: Fundação Vilanova Artigas, 1991.

External links

* [http://salu.cesar.org.br/arqbr/servlet/newstorm.notitia.apresentacao.ServletDeNoticia?codigoDaNoticia=426&dataDoJornal=atual ArqBr]
* [http://www.vitruvius.com.br/documento/lucio03.asp Original descriptive memorial, by Lúcio Costa] (in Portuguese)
* [http://www.cultura.gov.br/noticias/index.php?p=685&more=1&c=1&pb=1 Minister Gilberto Gil speech at Gustavo Capanema Palace]
* [http://fantastico.globo.com/Fantastico/0,19125,TFA0-2142-5650-197413,00.html Rede Globo TV story on the building]