Gustavo Capanema Palace

The pillars of the palace, in downtown Rio.

The Gustavo Capanema Palace (in Portuguese, Palácio Gustavo Capanema) is a modernist building in Rio de Janeiro designed by Le Corbusier and with construction overseen by Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa. The project was delivered by the French architect in 1935-1936. Construction started in 1939 and was completed in 1943, to house the new Ministry of Education and Health of Brazil (later split into separate ministries of Education, Culture and Health). In 1960 the national capital was moved to Brasília and the building was kept as an office for the ministry in Rio, which remains to nowadays. It is still regarded as a fine example of bold modernist architecture, and is one of the only two buildings by Le Corbusier in the continent, with Curutchet House in Argentina.

The building is named after Gustavo Capanema, who was the first Minister of Education of Brazil. It is located in the downtown Rio area of Castelo, where until 1903 there was a hill (Morro do Castelo), then demolished. The name Capanema itself means "unfertile grass" in Old Tupi.

The project, named Capanema Palace, in 1935, was extremely bold for the time. It was the first government modernist building in the Americas, and of a much larger scale than anything Le Corbusier had built until then. Completed in 1943, the building which housed the regulator and manager of Brazilian culture and cultural heritage developed all the elements of what was to become recognised as Brazilian modernist movement: it employed local materials and techniques, like the azulejos linked to the Portuguese tradition; the revolutionised Corbusian brises-soleil, made adjustable and related to the Moorish shading devices of colonial architecture; bold colours; the tropical gardens of Roberto Burle Marx; the Imperial Palm (roystonea oleraceæ), known as the Brazilian order; further allusions to the icons of the Brazilian landscape; and the integrated, specially commissioned works of Brazilian artists.