Solar dos Abacaxis, Manor house in Cosme Velho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Solar dos Abacaxis is a neoclassical manor house in the Cosme Velho neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The facade is symmetrical, with ornate cast-iron details framing the upper-floor windows and a sober ground level below.
The house was commissioned in 1843 by Comendador Borges da Costa and designed by Brazilian architect José Maria Jacinto Rebelo. In the 1940s, new owners Anna Amélia and Marcos Carneiro de Mendonça turned it into a meeting place for artists and thinkers.
The building takes its name from cast-iron pineapple figures placed on the upper-floor windows, which are visible from the street. These decorative elements make the facade easy to recognize among the other houses in the neighborhood.
The manor sits in a residential area of Cosme Velho and is easy to spot from the street thanks to the decorative window details. It is worth checking opening conditions in advance, as access is not always guaranteed.
The pineapples are forged-iron ornaments mounted on the balcony railings of the first-floor windows, not on the upper floor, and they gave the building its name. The house occupies 1,200 square metres on a 1,500-square-metre plot. From 1944 it was home to poet Anna Amélia Carneiro de Mendonça, great-granddaughter of the commander who built it, and her husband Marcos, Brazil's first national team goalkeeper.
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