Cultural tours in Rio have two new museums in a renovated central area
Last Sunday, November 5th, it was National Culture Day, a date created to celebrate the diversity of Brazil, a nation formed by people from many different origins. This day was picked as homage to Ruy Barbosa a Brazilian writer, diplomat, philosopher and journalist among other talents born in 1849. It’s true Rio have many dazzling landscapes and a vast array of acitivities to do outdoors but there are also plenty of cultural options too.
A very good one is located at downtown Rio, a place that was packed with people from all over the World about a year ago during the Olympic and paralympic games in 2016. They are in the renovated area of Porto Maravilha, MAR and Museu do Amanhã, facing each other.
Photo: Alexandre Macieira | Riotur
MAR, or Rio Museum of Art in Portuguese, is a space dedicated to art and audiovisual culture. Open in 2013 to celebrate Rio’s 448 years of foundation, it has over 161,000 square feet of area with eight exhibition rooms, usually two for every event. Right beside it is located the Escola do Olhar, a school offering courses on arts and culture.
The visitor tours the place from up to down: they go to the last floor of the Escola do Olhar to a terrace with a view to the Guanabara Bay and Rio’s Harbour. Then you get access to the rooms showing the museum exhibits. The upper section is dedicated to the city, its history, habits, culture, arts. The lower rooms have exhibits that last usually about three months. The museum website shows the complete list of events on show. (http://www.museudeartedorio.org.br/)
Photo: Alexandre Macieira | Riotur
The Porto Maravilha Cultural Project also offers the museum visitors the chance of taking a guided tour around the renovated harbour area. They are taken to historic and cultural spots in the museum surroundings. There is no fee for the tour that is available on Tuesdays and weekends at 10:30 AM, 12:30PM, 2:30 PM and 3:30PM. The best day to visit is Tuesday when there is no admittance fee to the museum. The regular ticket is US$ 6. The address is Mauá Square, 5.
In the opposite side, as a great ship anchored at Maua Pier is the Museu do Amanhã (Museum of Tomorrow in Portuguese) which has already been estabilished as one of Rio’s newest postcards. Not many years ago Maua Square was near and partially under the Perimetral Causeway which was put down to open space to the new area of Porto Maravilha, today linked by LRVs (Light Rail Vehicles) giving the region a rather futuristic set that matches the name of the museum.
Photo: Alexandre Macieira | Riotur
Visting the place is an experience. It is the meeting of science and art, reason and emotion, language and technology, culture and society. Planned by the City Hall and actually run by a foundation the museum became an icon of all changes Rio has gone through for the past years.
At the same time, Museu do Amanhã depicts the rigor of science and the expressive language of art, using technology as means to create submersive environments visual installations and games created from scientific research devolped by specialists based on data available from many different organizations spread all over the World.
Photo: Alexandre Macieira | Riotur
That’s the first museum in Brazil to present its content in a sensorial and interactive way. The space examines the past, show the present and make projections of possible scenarios for the next 50 years from the prospective of sustainability. https://museudoamanha.org.br/
As it happens with MAR, Museu do Amanhã opens from 10AM to 5PM. Tuesdays are free and tickets from Wed thru Sunday cost US$ 6. There is a combo so you can visit both museums for US$ 10.
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