Now all eyes are focused on the Olympic Games next month in Rio, I guess it’s time to go a little bit deeper in the history of some famous Brazilian landmarks. The Christ the Redeemer is a good start.
However, it’s not just a postcard of Brazil. It’s also a piece of complex engineering that took some years to be project and build.
The short film produced by Bel Noronha in 2015, Cristo Redemptor, is a documentary about the history of its monument, from the perspective of people that were involved in this magnificent project.
Details such the position of the statue that according to its designer, Heitor da Costa Silva, should be positioned in a place where it could be seen from different parts of the city. He got it spot on, I guess.
Christ the Redeemer was created by Polish-French sculptor Paul Landowski and constructed between 1922-1931.
For a pedestal, the statue has the 2310-foot mountain called Corcovado. The Christ figure on top rises another 100 feet, its arms extending nearly 92 feet from fingertip to fingertip, with a weight of some 700 tons.
Back that time, some people thought it would be impossible to build something like this in the location chosen.
Other curious facts:
- The incredible mobilisation to get funds to build the statue in the 20th decade in Rio de Janeiro
- From 1924 to 1927, Heitor held to Europe to finish the project and in Paris, where Paul Landowski and helped to give the final touches to the project;
- The statue was constructed also with the help of the people from Rio de Janeiro that used soapstone; ( watch here a video about soapstone used in the project made by the University of Nottingham )
- Christ the Redeemer is one of the seventh wonders of the world;
- It is the tallest of its kind in the world.
You can watch the short film here
