RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The seat of Brazil’s first government will become a luxury hotel in Salvador. A heritage of history, the Rio Branco Palace, in the city’s historic center, was the seat of the first Brazilian government.
Currently, it is the headquarters of the State Secretary of Culture. For the time being, because the space will become the first six-star hotel in the capital of Bahia. For this, the palace will be given over to private enterprise.
“The Rio Branco Palace is a building that is part of the history of Brazil, but it is underused. We understand that it is better to grant this heritage to the private sector than to let it collapse,” says Bahia’s Secretary of Tourism, Fausto Franco.
The auction that foresees the 35-year concession will take place on January 21. The minimum bid is R$26.5 (US$4.7) million. “In a period of 18 months, the recovery and restoration work of the palace will be concluded, and the hotel will be open for occupation,” says Maurício Bacelar, state tourism secretary.
The announcement of the winner of the bid is scheduled for January 19, 2022, at 9 am.
The information will be detailed on Monday, 20, on the State Tourism Secretariat’s website. The Portuguese group Vila Galé was the first private group to show interest in the property, located in downtown Salvador. However, the duration of the concession contract and the amount to be paid by the winner of the bid have not yet been disclosed.
“Nowadays, we have seen many monuments like this one, including listed monuments, not only here, but all over the world, being used for other purposes,” says architect and urban planner Ernesto Carvalho.
In Salvador, there are already other examples of preserved historical constructions that, at the same time, have been transformed into tourist entertainment. The house where the poet Vinícius de Moraes lived in the 1970s, for example, is now also a hotel.
“Vinícius’ fans are all over the world, and they seek us out; they come here to live this experience and remember Vinícius’ time in Salvador,” says Renata Proserpio, the hotel’s director.
EVENTFUL PAST
The Palace was built in 1549 as a wattle and daub house, where Tomé de Souza, the first governor-general of the colony, would live and work. In 1808, he hosted King João VI for 34 days after he had landed in the port of Salvador, fleeing Napoleon’s troops.
In 1837, it was the headquarters of the ephemeral Bahian Republic, proclaimed in Salvador after the Sabinada uprising. In 1912, it was targeted by cannon fire from the fort of São Marcelo to remove Governor Aurélio Viana.
The history of the Rio Branco Palace dates back to 1549 when Governor-General Tomé de Souza landed at the site where the city of Salvador would be erected, designed to be the administrative headquarters of Portuguese America.
The Governors’ House was one of the first buildings in the new city, built-in wattle and daub that would serve as the governor general’s address and the government’s administrative headquarters.
Since then, three other constructions have been built on the site. In 1663, the wattle and daub house became a building of stone and lime, taking on the appearance of a palace. It remained that way until the end of the 19th century when it was again refurbished and adopted a neoclassical style of architecture.
The palace was rebuilt again between 1912 and 1919 after being partially destroyed and set on fire after a bombing. Reopened a hundred years ago, it was renamed the Rio Branco Palace.
Until 1972, the palace was the official seat of Bahia’s government. It was the first of Brazil’s three branches, and today it shares the space on a plaza with the City Council, the mayoralty, and the Lacerda Elevator.
It has no more traces of its original architecture, nor is it listed as a landmark by IPHAN (“National Historical and Artistic Heritage Institute”). Still, specialists attest to its symbolic significance and historical importance.
In addition to housing the Governors’ Memorial, the palace features such areas as the Pompeana Room, with 19th and 20th-century frescoes, and the Mirror Room, in rococo style.
The Brazilian Institute of Architects (IAB), Bahia section, has been calling for the palace reclassified since 2015 and defends its use as a shelter for public bodies or cultural equipment. “It is a building that, although undergoing modifications, is as old as Salvador. It is part of the city’s first core,” says Solange Araújo, president of IAB Bahia.
The installation of a new hotel should take place amid changes in the tourist sector in Salvador, which in recent years has seen such iconic hotels as the Othon and the Pestana close their doors. In contrast, new developments emerge in the historic town center, such as the Hotel Fasano and the Fera Palace Hotel.
Some of the sector point to an excess of beds in the Bahian capital: there are 404 hotels and about 40 thousand rooms, with an average occupancy rate of 62 percent in 2018.
Suggestions of other uses for the palace came from the political milieu. The municipal secretary of Tourism, Claudio Tinoco, proposed that it house city hall. City councilors advocated the establishment of museums on themes such as Capoeira and the Independence of Bahia.
State Secretary Fausto Franco, however, is skeptical about proposals that require public investment and claims that the state cannot invest its resources in the palace.
In addition to the Rio Branco Palace, other buildings in the historic center belonging to the government of Bahia should be ceded to the private sector. The next target is the Sports Palace, built-in 1806.
Set in Castro Alves square, the building carries historical weight: it housed the São João Theater, where Bahians crowded together to watch musical performances and even conferences by jurist Rui Barbosa.
And, like the Rio Branco Palace, it was also the target of cannonballs in 1912.