Parque das Ruínas, Cultural center in Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Parque das Ruínas is a park in Santa Teresa featuring the preserved walls of an early twentieth-century mansion. Metal walkways cross over the ruins and lead to viewpoints overlooking Guanabara Bay and the city below.

The Palacete Murtinho Nobre was built between 1898 and 1902 for the Murtinho family, and Laurinda Santos Lobo, heiress of the Companhia Matte Larangeira, lived there until her death in 1946. The state government listed the remaining structure in 1993, and the Parque das Ruínas opened in 1997 after a renovation by architects Ernani Freire and Sonia Lopes.

The park is not named after Laurinda Santos Lobo; it was renamed Parque Glória Maria in 2023 after the journalist, and a mural by Eduardo Kobra honors her. Laurinda, known as "the marshal of elegance," hosted Villa-Lobos, Tarsila do Amaral and Isadora Duncan in her mansion during the 1920s. Today the park hosts concerts and exhibitions, and its archaeological collection displays original fragments of the mansion in glass domes.

The entrance sits on Rua Murtinho Nobre in Santa Teresa, next to the Museu da Chácara do Céu, and the grounds are reached on foot through the old mansion walls. The open-air terrace and lookout over Guanabara Bay and the Centro are the main orientation points; the auditorium seats 100 and the stage measures 88 square metres. Expect steep streets in the neighbourhood.

The modern metal structures frame the original walls rather than cover them, creating unexpected angles where past and present coexist visually. Walking through reveals how the two layers interact and change the view at each turn.