The Copacabana calçada (Copacabana sidewalk) is one of the greatest symbols in the stunning landscape of Rio de Janeiro. What not everyone knows is that its history (and design) precedes the intervention of Roberto Burle Marx in the 1970s. The origin of the design, as well as its stones, is Portuguese.
The design so characteristic of the most famous beach in the world is based on the drawing created by the engineer Pinheiro Furtado, at the beginning of the 19th century, for the Rossio Square in Lisbon. The waves represent the meeting of the Tagus River and the Atlantic Ocean that takes place in the Portuguese capital and his design was baptized "Mar Largo" (Wide Sea).
In 1905, Rio de Janeiro Mayor Pereira Passos inaugurated the Copacabana calçada on Avenida Atlântica as part of a plan to modernize the then-capital of Brazil and pay tribute to the cultural heritage of the colonizers.
The stones were imported from Portugal because no limestone deposits had yet been discovered to extract the material from Brazil —that is why it is called "Portuguese stone"— to form the paving, which allows the composition in different colors: black, white, and red.
For its installation on the Rio de Janeiro shore, 36 cobblers were needed, sent by the Lisbon City Hall to Brazil. Until today, Rio's City Hall trains its employees in a course taught by Lisbon professionals for the maintenance of the sidewalks that stretches from Leme to Pontal.
Back to Copacabana, with the enlargement of Avenida Atlântica in the 1970s, a complete renovation was executed. The landscape designer Roberto Burle Marx was responsible for the new pagination of the sidewalk, which became the "largest example of applied art existing in the world", according to its listing in the State Institute of Cultural Heritage. It was in this intervention that the waves gained their current direction and stopped being perpendicular to the length of the sidewalk, becoming parallel to the sea. Burle Marx also modified the original design, by lengthening its curves and integrating it into a wider graphic set —marked by the author's formal abstractionism—, which dialogues with the landscape project composed of trees with large canopies and palm trees. Thus, forming one of the most emblematic tourist scenarios in the world.
