Palácio Lauro Sodré
Brazil · Americas
About
Lauro Sodré Palace (Portuguese: Palácio Lauro Sodré), also called Government Palace (Portuguese: Palácio do Governo), and initially called Residence House (Portuguese: Casa de Residência), is a public building, palace, museum and seat of the state government, built in 1680 and located in the neighborhood of Cidade Velha, in the Brazilian city of Belém, in the state of Pará.
It was designed in the classical Italian style by the Bolognese architect Antonio Landi, technician of the Kingdom, at the request of the governor of Grão-Pará, Manuel Bernardo Mello de Castro, and inaugurated by the Portuguese colonial administrator João Pereira Caldas to be the headquarters of the Portuguese government as the palace of the governors of the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão.
In 1994, during the administration of governor Jader Barbalho, the palace was transformed into the Pará State Museum (MEP), housing several forms of artistic manifestations, from visual arts exhibitions to video-mapping projections on its facade. It is also called the King's Palace, due to rumors that it was made to house King Joseph I and the royal family.
Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.