This edition of Rolé Carioca will take us through the history of a neighborhood that coincides with that of a forest - Tijuca Forest, which today is the result of a combination of reforestation and natural regeneration of various parts of the forest. During the Portuguese colonization, human occupation advanced along the slopes, where the highlands and mild climate represented an escape from the dirty, unhealthy, crowded streets of the center. From this noble point, the city was viewed in a beautiful way - that is, from afar!
The establishment of the first coffee farms in Rio practically transformed the massif into open land. The most devastating period was in the early 19th century, when farms with between 5 and 100,000 coffee trees set up in the area. The product would soon deplete the soil, being taken and multiplied in the Paraíba Valley and later in São Paulo. What remained of native vegetation on the tops of the steeper hills and slopes, and the resulting scarcity of water, caught the attention of our rulers. Between 1844 and 1890, regulations were issued and enforced to preserve the original forest, replant devastated parts and relocate streams to ensure water supply for the urban population. It is estimated that more than 200,000 seedlings were planted under the command of Major Manuel Gomes Archer and Tomás Nogueira da Gama, in the upper Tijuca and Paineiras regions.
Subsequently, measures such as the improvement of trails and access to the region continued these policies, making the Forest a sanctuary for nature lovers, tourists, visitors and for the recreation and environmental education of the population. Despite being located in the middle of a chaotic metropolis, subject to fire, robbery and invasion, the replanted Tijuca Forest is in a healthy state of 'regeneration'. This relative stability contrasts sharply with what happened in the not too distant past: when Rio was still a small town, in a short time the surrounding forests were almost completely decimated.
Image Credit: BN Digital
Inaugurated in 1903 by the then mayor Pereira Passos, the square helped consolidate the neighborhood, along with the expansion and paving of the Alto da Boa Vista road, now Edison Passos Avenue. It had a bandstand that gave way to the fountain designed by Grandjean de Montigny in 1846 to compose the set of the former Rossio Pequeno, now known as Place Eleven. In the 1940s, during the opening works of Av. Presidente Vargas, the stone piece with bronze decorative elements was transferred to this square.
Image credit: Thiago Diniz/Rolé Carioca
Commissioned by Francisco José da Rocha Leão, Count of Itamaraty, to be a country house, the neoclassical palace of symmetrical facades was completed in 1854. The architect in charge, José Maria Jacinto Rebelo, also participated in the construction of the Petrópolis Imperial Palace and the Itamaraty, on Avenida Marechal Floriano. Situated in a landscape protection area, it is a simple rural miniature of the great urban compositions of the time of D. Pedro II. In the twentieth century it had other uses: it was patronage of minors, school and Our Lady of Grace Preventory.
Image credit: Thiago Diniz/Rolé Carioca
Devotion to Our Lady of Light denotes the strong Portuguese influence of this parish. It began in Portugal in the fifteenth century, with simple and singular history: being imprisoned by the Moors, a Portuguese gentleman, Pedro Martins, very devoted to Our Lady, faithfully invoked the protection of the Mother of God, who freed him. He then became the promoter of devotion to Our Lady of Light who settled in Portuguese lands.
Image credit: Thiago Diniz/Rolé Carioca
During the 19th century, the outskirts of Alto da Boa Vista housed a concentration of French noblemen who mainly devoted themselves to coffee cultivation - until the afforestation of the area. Construction of houses and mansions on large neighborhood estates peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, when a upper middle class settled in the area. Today, many of these mansions have been offered for sale or transformed into party houses, rented out for weddings, events, and movie sets.
Image credit: Thiago Diniz/Rolé Carioca
The Forest Relief and Environment Group (GSFMA) was opened in 1990 to combat forest fires. Until then, there were no official Rio de Janeiro firefighters with specialized knowledge to quell forest fires, using techniques other than urban fire control. Ten years later, a big fire would become the worst to hit the Tijuca Forest. The tragedy could have been greater, but the new officers circumvented the bureaucracy to work in coordination with the Navy, Ibama and the Municipal Guard, saving many hectares of Atlantic Forest from destruction.
Image credit: Thiago Diniz/Rolé Carioca
The Marcelina Congregation was founded in Cernusco, Milan - Italy, in 1838, by Monsignor Luis Biraghi (1801 - 1879). Biraghi was attentive to the social issues of his time. He lived in a war-torn Italy. That is why I believed that it was necessary to educate women, the great responsible for the formation of future generations.
Image credit: Thiago Diniz/Rolé Carioca
Although the order to replace the devastated forest of the Tijuca Massif came from D. Pedro II, measures taken by D. João VI helped to diminish the impact of monoculture on forests much earlier. In 1817, a decree determined the protection of the Carioca river basins as a way of guaranteeing drinking water for the rapidly growing population at the time. However, the city's water supply crisis was the major trigger for afforestation. The small protected springs were not enough, so the government issued a rule that thickets were planted in the country by the seedling system and straight, starting from both banks of the river springs.
Several properties of Alto da Boa Vista have already been used as rentals for TV and cinema. The big house that houses the Museu do Açude recurs in the soap opera “Roque Santeiro”. It is the property on which Sinhozinho Malta (Lima Duarte) visits the widow Porcina (Regina Duarte) in the fictional city of Asa Branca. In front of the museum, Maison Paineiras served as the setting for Record's soap operas “Vidas Opostas” and “Império” and “A Favorita” by Globo. The plot of "The Rebu" unfolds from a body that appears floating in the pool of businesswoman Angela Mahler (Patricia Pillar), scene recorded at Mansion of Heras.
The painter Nicolas-Antoine Taunay (1755-1830), who participated in the so-called 'French Artistic Mission', was the first nobleman to establish residence in the region and built his house by the waterfall that now bears his name, within the preservation area. . At the time, the Taunay Cascatinha site served to spread the area as a refuge. The Tijuca Mountains became one of the most pictorial themes represented by the artist-travelers who came to Rio during the 19th century. The aura of amenity, kindness and natural beauty that surrounded the Forest was portrayed, painted, drawn from every angle possible, by Taunay, Debret, Rugendas, Arago and Ender. A naturist paradise that contrasted - and very - with the dirty, unhealthy, disorderly, and hot city.
The sale of noble bonds was a big deal for the state in Brazil. It was noble who was rich. To be bestowed as a baron, the lowest designation in the Empire, the cost was 750,000 réis. But the Brazilian titles were individual and not transferable. They were never hereditary, unlike monarchic regimes such as England and Portugal. In order to be entitled to designation and enjoy the privileges, the heir needed to “recompute legitimacy”, forming a kind of family clan of nobles - such as the family of the Count of Itamaraty, Francisco José da Rocha Leão (1806-1883), whose father, His namesake, a wealthy Portuguese-Portuguese merchant, had also been a baron.
Acquired in 1913 by art collector Raimundo Ottoni de Castro Maya, the house was turned into a museum in the 1960s and then donated to the Union. Castro Maya gave the house a neo-colonial look, featuring Portuguese tile floor eaves and Portuguese tile panels. The garden, next to the Tijuca Forest, had the landscape orientation of Burle Marx. The Museum exhibits the collections of Porto tiles, oriental art and applied arts and composes the Castro Maya Museums along with the Chácara do Céu Museum in Santa Teresa. Both have furnished and decorated rooms that preserve the dwelling character of the spaces.
Estr. do Açude, 764 - Alto da Boa Vista
Daily except Tuesdays from 11am to 5pm
Free admission on Thursdays
Phone: (21) 3433-4990
http://museuscastromaya.com.br/
Image credit: Halley Pacheco de Oliveira
