Get to know the 10 best museums in Brazil chosen by TripAdvisor users.
1. Ricardo Brennand Institute, Recife (PE)
The Ricardo Brennand Institute (IRB), also known as Castelo de Brennand, is a non-profit Brazilian cultural institution located in the city of Recife, capital of the state of Pernambuco. It was elected the best museum in South America by the TripAdvisor travel site. TripAdvisor.
The IRB has the world’s largest collection of the Dutch painter Frans Post, the first landscaper in the Americas and the first Brazilian landscape painter. It also houses one of the largest collections of melee weapons in the world, with more than 3,000 pieces, including 27 complete medieval armours.
Founded in 2001 by the Pernambuco collector and businessman Ricardo Brennand, the Institute opened to the public in September 2002 with the exhibition Albert Eckhout returns to Brazil, in a gala event that was attended by the Crown Prince of Denmark, Frederik. In 2003, the then Queen of Holland, Beatrix, was at the Institute to open the exhibition Frans Post and Dutch Brazil, which is still open to visitors today. The complex comprises the following buildings: the Castelo São João Museum, the Pinacoteca, the Library, the Auditorium, the Sculpture Garden, the Gallery (for temporary exhibitions and events), the Restaurant and the Nossa Senhora das Graças Chapel.
Official Website: https://www.institutoricardobrennand.org.br/
2. Inhotim, Brumadinho (MG)
The Inhotim Institute is home to one of the most important collections of contemporary art in Brazil and is considered the largest open-air museum in the world. It is located in Brumadinho (Minas Gerais), a city with 38,000 inhabitants, just 60 kilometers from Belo Horizonte.
The Inhotim Institute is located within the domain of the Atlantic Forest, with enclaves of cerrado on the tops of the mountains. Situated at an altitude that varies between 700 meters and 1,300 meters above sea level, its total area is 786.06 hectares, with a preservation area of 440.16 hectares, which comprise forest fragments and include a Private Reserve of Natural Heritage (RPPN), with 145.37 hectares.
The institution emerged in 2004 to house the collection of Bernardo Paz, a businessman in the mining and steel industry, who was married to the artist Adriana Varejão from Rio de Janeiro, and 20 years ago he began to dispose of his valuable collection of modernist art, which included works by Portinari, Guignard and Di Cavalcanti, to form the collection of contemporary art that is now at Inhotim. In 2014, the open-air museum was elected, by the TripAdvisor website, one of the 25 museums in the world best evaluated by users.
Official Website: https://www.inhotim.org.br/
3. Museu da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo (SP)
Museu da Língua Portuguesa or Estação Luz da Nossa Língua is an interactive museum about the Portuguese language located in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, in the historic Estação da Luz building, in Bairro da Luz , central region of the city. It was conceived by the Department of Culture of the State of São Paulo together with the Roberto Marinho Foundation, with an investment of around 37 million reais.
The institution’s objective is to create a living space on the Portuguese language, considered the basis of Brazilian culture, where it is possible to surprise visitors with the unusual and often unknown aspects of their mother tongue. According to the museum’s organizers, “it is hoped that, in the museum, this public will have access to new knowledge and reflections, in an intense and pleasurable way”.
The museum’s main target is the average Brazilian population, made up of people from the most varied regions and social groups in the country, but who still haven’t had the opportunity to obtain a more precise and clear idea about the origins, history and evolution of the country. continuation of the language. Since its inauguration until the end of 2012, more than 2.9 million people had already visited the space, consolidating it as one of the most visited museums in Brazil and South America.
On December 21, 2015, the museum was hit by a fire that destroyed two floors of its structure. Its collection, however, was not lost, as it is virtual, being recovered from backups.
Official Website: https://www.museudalinguaportuguesa.org.br/
4. Oscar Niemeyer Museum, Curitiba (PR)
The Oscar Niemeyer Museum (also known as Museu do Olho or MON) is an art museum located in the city of Curitiba, capital of the state of Paraná, Brazil.
The complex of two buildings, installed in an area of thirty-five thousand square meters (of which nineteen thousand are dedicated to the exhibition area), is a true example of architecture combined with art.
The first building was designed by Oscar Niemeyer in 1967, faithful to the style of the time, conceived as an Institute of Education. This building has the second largest free span in Brazil, with 65 m. It was renovated and adapted to serve as a museum, for which Niemeyer designed the annex, resembling an eye, giving it a new characteristic identity.
Inaugurated on November 22, 2002 under the name of New Museum, with the completion of the annex, it was reopened on July 8, 2003, receiving its current name. It is known locally as “Museu do Olho”, due to the design of its building and as “MON”, an abbreviation for Museu Oscar Niemeyer.
The institution focuses on visual arts, architecture and design. Due to its grandeur, beauty and the importance of the collection, it currently represents a cultural institution with national and international projection.
Official Website: https://museuoscarniemeyer.org.br/
5. Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo (SP)
The Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo is one of the most important art museums in Brazil. It occupies a building built in 1900, in Jardim da Luz, downtown São Paulo, designed by Ramos de Azevedo and Domiziano Rossi to be the headquarters of the Lyceum of Arts and Crafts. It is the oldest art museum in São Paulo, founded in 1905 and regulated as a state public museum since 1911.
After the renovation carried out by Paulo Mendes da Rocha in the 1990s, it became one of the most dynamic cultural institutions in the country, joining the international exhibition circuit, promoting various cultural events and maintaining an active bibliographic production. Pina, as it is also known, also manages the space called Estação Pinacoteca, or Pina Estação, installed in the former DOPS building, in Bom Retiro, where it holds temporary exhibitions of contemporary art, the Walter Wey Library and the Documentation and Memory Center of the institution.
The Pinacoteca houses one of the largest and most representative collections of Brazilian art, with more than ten thousand pieces covering mostly the history of Brazilian painting in the 19th and 20th centuries. Also noteworthy are the Brasiliana Collection, made up of works by foreign artists active in Brazil or inspired by the country’s iconography, the Nemirovsky Collection, with an expressive set of masterpieces of Brazilian modernism and, more recently, the Roger Wright Collection, received on loan in January 2015.
Official Website: http://pinacoteca.org.br/
6. Football Museum, São Paulo (SP)
The Football Museum is a space dedicated to the most different subjects involving the practice, history and curiosities of Brazilian and world football. The cultural space was built inside the Paulo Machado de Carvalho Municipal Stadium, known as Pacaembu, in Charles Miller Square, in the neighborhood of the same name, in the west of the city. The work was carried out in a consortium between the City of São Paulo and the state government and was released to the public on September 29, 2008.
The initiative to build the Football Museum also had the help of the Municipal Department of Sports and São Paulo Turismo – with the conception and realization of the Roberto Marinho Foundation. Since its opening, the museum has been managed by IDBrasil Cultura, Educação e Esporte, which also manages the Museum of the Portuguese Language. Among the many stories told in the museum’s various environments, in one of them it is possible to admire the Pacaembu lawn from above, for example.
The museum’s main objective is to entertain visitors and bring them closer to the history of football. In it, the public has the opportunity to understand how a sport of English origin, practiced by white members of the elite, gradually became, from the adherence of mestizo and popular traits – as well as Brazilian culture – a characteristic sport of Brazil .
The museum tells the story of football from its beginnings to the present day. During the tour, aspects such as the relationship between sport and art, the history of the World Cups, the impact of football on people’s lives in general are explained. Visitors have access, from sound and visual experiences, to a sequence of didactic and illustrative information that relate sport to the lives of Brazilians in the 20th century. In total, the display of images in videos lasts approximately six hours.
Official Website: https://museudofutebol.org.br/
7. Catavento Cultural and Educational, São Paulo (SP)
Museu Catavento is an interactive museum, opened in 2009 with the purpose of dedicating itself to science and its dissemination and is located in the Palácio das Indústrias, in São Paulo, Brazil. The 12,000 square meter space is divided into 4 sections: “Universe”, “Life”, “Engenho” and “Society” and has more than 250 installations. Aimed at young people, it was founded by the state departments of culture and education, with an investment of 20 million reais after 14 months of construction.
Although the museum began operating in 2009, the São Paulo City Hall had already been discussing its creation since 2005, when it sent bill 469/2005 to the São Paulo City Council to authorize the executive to establish the Catavento Foundation. The project was only approved and transformed into law 14,130 in 2006, after a year of processing and alteration of the original text by the politician Chico Macena, who defended the creation of the Catavento Foundation to create and manage the Children’s Museum and not just a center for development of children and adolescents.
Official Website: http://www.cataventocultural.org.br/
8. Imperial Museum, Petrópolis (RJ)
The Imperial Museum, popularly known as the Imperial Palace, is a historical-thematic museum located in the historic center of the city of Petrópolis, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is housed in the former Summer Palace of the Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro II. The museum’s collection consists of pieces linked to the Brazilian monarchy, including furniture, documents, works of art and personal objects of members of the imperial family.
Official Website: https://museuimperial.museus.gov.br/
9. PUCRS Science and Technology Museum, Porto Alegre (RS)
The PUCRS Science and Technology Museum is a Brazilian museum, located in the city of Porto Alegre, at Avenida Ipiranga 6681, building 40, in the Parthenon neighborhood, next to the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul – PUCRS.
It was inaugurated on December 9, 1998, succeeding the Museum of Sciences, created in 1967. It is one of the most prominent interactive museums of natural sciences in Latin America, offering activities for all ages and showing areas of experiment-attractions about the Universe , the Earth, the Environment and Man, among others.
The permanent public exhibition area has around 700 interactive experiments, covering numerous areas of knowledge. The visitor himself can participate in the experiences that resulted in current scientific knowledge. The permanent collection includes 5 million pieces.
Official Website: https://www.pucrs.br/mct/
10. Museum of Art of São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP), São Paulo (SP)
The Museum of Art of São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (better known by the acronym MASP) is one of the most important Brazilian cultural institutions. Since November 7, 1968, it has been located on Avenida Paulista, in the city of São Paulo, in a building designed by the Italian-Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi to be its headquarters. Famous for the span of more than 70 meters that extends under four enormous pillars, designed by engineer José Carlos de Figueiredo Ferraz, the building is considered an important example of Brazilian brutalist architecture and one of the most popular icons of the capital of São Paulo, being listed by the three heritage protection bodies: IPHAN, Condephaat and Conpresp.
Private non-profit institution, the museum was founded in 1947, on the initiative of Assis Chateaubriand, from Paraíba. Throughout its history, it has been noted for a series of important initiatives in the field of museology and artistic training, as well as for its strong didactic activities. It was also one of the first museum spaces on the continent to act as a cultural center, as well as the first museum in the country to welcome the artistic trends that emerged after the Second World War.
MASP has the most important and comprehensive collection of western art in Latin America and the entire southern hemisphere, in which the consistent collections referring to the Italian and French schools are particularly notable. It also has an extensive section of Brazilian art and small sets of African and Asian art, decorative arts, archaeological pieces, etc., totaling approximately 8 thousand pieces. The collection is listed by the National Historical and Artistic Heritage Institute (IPHAN). The museum also houses one of the largest art libraries in the country.
Official Website: https://masp.org.br/
This was a summary of the presentation of the main museums in Brazil, if you have already visited any of them, leave your experience here in the comments!
The descriptions of each museum contained in this text were taken directly from the Wikipedia site. To learn more about the site, or read its contents in full, visit: Wikipédia
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