PRESS RELEASE
The Cidade das Artes is situated between the sea and the mountains, at the center of fourteen kilometers of plain, on which a new and major district of Rio de Janeiro has been built – Barra da Tijuca. The landscape, deprived of strong urban landmarks and public spaces, is marked by a succession of closed spaces with residences and offices on one side of a straight expressway, which is lined on the other side by shopping centers. There are no streets, no urban landmarks, no public symbols. That’s why the Town Hall wanted to build an arts complex there as a public space – part-commercial and part-administrative.
The project is very much a public symbol, a new landmark in the greater Rio area, an urban signal, floating on the plain and highly visible.
The site is a central space at an interchange between two highways that cross the district, designed by Lucio Costa. Here, the Cidade das Artes will be at the very heart of the new city.