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Discover Rio de Janeiro through its Architecture.
Guiding Architects Rio de Janeiro offers professionally guided architecture tours, exclusively by architects. On our tours, we visit architectural gems and get to understand the structure and development of the city since Rio's foundation 450 years ago.
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Discover Rio de Janeiro through its Architecture
Guiding Architects Rio de Janeiro offers professionally guided architecture tours, exclusively led by architects. On our tours, we visit architectural gems and get to understand the structure and development of the city since Rio's foundation 450 years ago.
Rio de Janeiro is a UNESCO World Heritage site, set between ocean, tropical forests and mountains. Discover a multilayered city from the colonial era to modernism. Through numerous redesigns, Rio changed tremendously, reinventing itself several times over.
Professional Architecture Tours in Rio de Janeiro
Our tours focus each on special themes such as early history, modernism, or actual urban planning. The guides have broad knowledge in both architecture history and contemporary urban development. We enable admission to buildings, which normally remain closed for regular visitors. Discover the architectural gems within the attractive scenery of Rio de Janeiro and enjoy the welcoming Brazilian hospitality.
We provide "Suggested Day Tours" as well as "Tailor-made Tours" about specific topics of your preference. For visitors coming from overseas, we suggest "Multi City Travels" through Brazil from five to ten or more days.
Multi-City Tours to Rio de Janeiro and Other Brazilian Cities
Discover Brazil's architectural highlights on one of our tailor-made multi city tours. We and our local partners will lead you to the most exciting contemporary and historic buildings in Brazil. Cities and places of interest are São Paulo, Brasilia, Belo Horizonte, the Contemporary Art Center Inhotim, Ouro Preto, Salvador da Bahia, Manaus, Porto Alegre, etc.
We will put together your trip according to your preferences. We create the complete content and organize your flights, accommodation, transfers and transportation, as well as optionally board etc. We also offer to help booking extra days or weeks of stay.
The national congress of Brazil, Brasilia
Bespoke Travel
For groups interested in a special topic, style or a certain architect we offer tailor-made tours in Rio de Janeiro. Are you in Rio de Janeiro only for a short visit and want to see the best of it?
Overview of Suggested Day Tours
In our suggested day and half-day tours we aim covering amazing landmarks and architecture gems as well as the city's unique history of urban development. See here a list of our tours:
Rio from Past to Present
We highly recommend this tour for your first visit to the city. We visit the historical center of the city and the Sugar Loaf. You get a geographical overview and orientation of the city. Also, we get a historical overview, seeing buildings from the colonial times, neoclassical, eclectic and highlights from modern architecture. Everything standing right next to each other.
Art Deco Copacabana & South Zone
Close to the beaches facing the Atlantic ocean, lies the wealthy Rio’s South Zone area. It’s an urban residential borough with good infrastructure, many restaurants and shops. The term South Zone has become a general expression in Brazil for the wealthy "downtown" neighborhoods. In contrast stand the favelas that coexist in almost every neighborhood. On the tour, besides showing gems, we also explain the social, political and urban implications of this contrast.
View from Sugar Loaf mountain to Corcovado and Botafogo neighborhood (right) as well as Copacabana beach (left) .
Ipanema Boardwalk was designed by Roberto Burle Marx.
Rio Urban Renewal
In sight of the Olympics, the former harbor area became subject of an urban redesign project, initiated by the municipal urban office. The plan tried to bring historical, economical and social interests together. On the tour, we will explain how the project was implemented as well as discuss the issues of such a vast urban renewal.
Oscar Niemeyer's Oeuvre
Among architects - Oscar Niemeyer is the first thought connected to Brazil. The most known buildings by Niemeyer might be in Brasilia, but only in Rio we can learn his evolution from his very first building, a small nursery school, to his last built work, the complex for the University FGV.
For the MAR Museum of Arts Rio de Janeiro, two buildings were converted and connected with a ondulated roof.
Niemeyer's iconic Museum of Contemporary Art almost flies above the rock in Niteroi.
Modern Brazil
Modern European architecture and Le Corbusier's five points influenced the Brazilian movement very strongly, but the style was not just copied. Adapting the principles to the tropical climate and Brazilian culture, the architects created a very own style. The similarities as well as the differences between both styles are topic of this tour.
Tropical Landscape Design
Rio de Janeiro has a lot of landscape architecture to visit, including many projects of Roberto Burle Marx. We offer a tour to different sites including Burle Marx’s own property and park, where he planted over 4000 species. You will see the changes between the European influenced gardens to the more tropicalized projects using native species.
Today, the former villa houses the Institute Moreira Salles with photography exhibitions and a cinema.
For the wall of this fountain, Burle Marx used stones from a building on demolition in the city center.