Where Does Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Promenade Come From?
The swirling wave mosaic that runs along Copacabana Beach is one of Rio de Janeiro’s most emblematic symbols, but what’s the story behind this iconic promenade?
There’s no place quite like Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian metropolis pulsates with an exhilarating energy entirely its own, drawing its vigor from a unique tapestry of natural and cultural wonders.
The city is framed by the dramatic curves of lush tropical mountains and is alive with rhythmic Samba beats, vibrant street festivals, electrifying soccer matches and joyful Cariocas. And then there are beaches—miles of pristine coastline and golden sand beckoning under the warm Brazilian sun.
Among its epic scenes, the Copacabana calçadão stands out as one of the most emblematic symbols of the Cidade Maravilhosa. Right before one reaches the vast, soft sands of Rio’s most famous beach comes one of the world’s most recognizable images. But what’s the story behind the promenade and its iconic design?
Copacabana Beach itself is like a postcard come to life. This long and scalloped beach stretches two and a half miles from Leme to Ipanema in Rio’s glamorous Zona Sul and is always alive with a flurry of activity along its length: futevôlei (soccer volleyball) players showing off their insane skills, Cariocas and tourists mingling at kiosks while waiting for their caipirinhas, and vendors shouting their wares among crowds of tanned sunbathers.
Beneath all this action is a tiled walkway crafted from black and white stone that dawns a mosaic wave pattern. Not only does this promenade separate the soft sands from the high-rise apartments and luxury hotels on the opposite side of Avenida Atlântic, but it has also come to define the image of Rio de Janeiro.
The Copacabana boardwalk holds a surprising origin story that stretches across the Atlantic Ocean and traces its roots to Lisbon in the 19th century. The now-iconic swirling wave pattern is actually a modern twist on a traditional design called calçada portuguesa, or Portuguese pavement, which originated in 1840 when Lieutenant General Eusebio Piheiro Furtado ordered the prisoners at the Castelo de São Jorge to pave their courtyard in a zig-zag pattern.
The result was instantly admired, and these mosaic pavements quickly spread throughout Lisbon, beginning a few years later with Rossio Square, one of the city’s main plazas that dates back to the Middle Ages.
In 1848, Furtado and his men transformed Rossio Square with black and white vidraço (glasslike stone) and an original wave pattern was created as a tribute to represent the meeting of the Tagus River and the Atlantic Ocean that takes place in the Portuguese capital. His design was baptized Mar Lago, or “wide sea.”
Following the success of Rossio Square, Portuguese pavement spread throughout the country and eventually across the empire to its former colonies. In Brazil, it became known as pedra portuguesa, or “Portuguese stone,” and the technique was used for the first time in Manaus in 1905, followed shortly after by Belo Horizonte and then Rio de Janeiro.
In Rio, mayor Francisco Pereira Passos was a strong promoter of implementing the calçada as part of an initiative to modernize the then-capital of Brazil, and as a way to pay homage to its cultural heritage. He brought in 36 calceteiros, pavers skilled in the technique who hand-cut and lay each individual stone, sent directly by Lisbon City Hall.
The materials were also imported from Portugal, as no limestone deposits had been discovered yet in Brazil. They were used to pave the boardwalk along the newly inaugurated Avenida Atlântica, the road that runs along Copacabana Beach, in a mosaic wave pattern that resembled Rossio Square in Lisbon.
Copacabana would become one of the world’s most famous beaches in the following decades, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that the promenade would become the iconic version we know today.
This evolution was led by Roberto Burle Marx, a renowned Brazilian landscape architect known for his designs of public urban spaces and credited with pioneering modernist landscape architecture in the country. Burle Marx made a name for himself in the first half of the twentieth century for his designs of residential homes, parks and gardens, eventually catching the attention of Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer.
Drawing on his deep knowledge of Brazil’s rich tropical plants, his fine arts training, and his love for the natural world, his style blended modernism and nature, often incorporating the surrounding natural elements into the core structural design. His vision went beyond aesthetics. He saw urban spaces as living art that should reflect the cultural and natural richness of their environment.
By the time the 1970s rolled around, Burle Marx was already established as one of the most renowned landscape architects in Brazil, and he was approached as part of a larger urban renewal project for what would become his crowning achievement: the reimagining of the Copacabana Beach boardwalk.
Burle Marx wanted to retain the essence of the boardwalk’s traditional Portuguese paving pattern from Rossio Square but give it a modern facelift with a more fluid, oscillating approach. He modified the original design by widening the curves of the waves and changing their direction—no longer perpendicular to the length of the sidewalk but instead parallel to the sea.
He also added newly paved areas that ran alongside the main promenade and featured abstract tributes to traditional Brazilian folk art using black, white and red-colored stones. Rows of palm trees were planted to provide respite from the sun, while benches offered beach-goers a space to gather, relax and socialize—thereby transforming the promenade into the vibrant urban space that exists today.
There’s something magical about Rio de Janeiro and its cocktail of tropical modernism—and the Copacabana Beach promenade is the perfect embodiment. It channels the organic curves of nature into an urban construction and facilitates movement—both the literal foot traffic of joyful beach-goers and the swirling wavy pattern that runs its length.
Today, the promenade is an integral part of Rio’s identity—embodies the effortless blend of natural beauty and urban design that can be found throughout the city.