Pampulha Modern Ensemble
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How it came to be
In 1940 Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais, began a garden city project around an artificial lake. At its centre was a cultural and leisure complex: a casino, a ballroom, the Golf Yacht Club and the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi. Oscar Niemeyer designed the buildings, working with landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx, structural engineer Joaquim Cardozo and Brazilian modernist artists.
The mayor, Juscelino Kubitschek, was the project's patron. For the church Niemeyer used parabolic concrete vaults, a form until then used only for hangars, as both structure and enclosure. Inside are Candido Portinari's 14 Stations of the Cross, and the outer walls are clad in blue and white tiles.
The church was finished in 1943, but Archbishop Antonio dos Santos Cabral of Belo Horizonte objected to its forms and to Portinari's altar mural, and for 14 years church authorities barred Catholic services there. After Niemeyer refurbished it, it was consecrated in April 1959. The former casino is now the Pampulha Art Museum, and the ensemble was inscribed in July 2016.
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