On first impression, Rio de Janeiro's Cidade das Artes seems an act of architectural hubris and urban lunacy. Opened to the public last year after almost a decade of interrupted construction and cost overruns, it has been mired in criticism as a symbol of economic stratification in a city where an estimated 20 percent of the population resides in favelas.
The Cidade das Artes is the love child of Christian de Portzamparc and Cesar Maia, an ambitious former mayor once determined to put Rio on the global culture map. Maia's vision was for a Cidade da Musica—not Artes—modeled on Portzamparc's Cité de la Musique in Paris. And the architect was no stranger to the city: Elisabeth, his wife of more than 30 years, is a Carioca (a Rio native). When the then mayor summoned Portzamparc urgently to Rio in 2002, Maia announced that they would visit the site by helicopter, without disclosing the location. The helicopter headed west past Zona Sul's well-heeled neighborhoods and finally hovered over a vacant site at a key intersection surrounded by highways in Barra di Tijuca, almost 20 miles west of the city center.
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