Arcos da Lapa

Why go

The aqueduct makes two eras of Rio’s infrastructure visible in one structure. Its eighteenth-century arches answered the colonial city’s need for fresh water; the tram tracks above show how the same crossing later connected central Rio with Santa Teresa hill.

What to look for

• The surviving eighteenth-century structure carried water from the Carioca River into central Rio.
• Its monumental double row of white arches spans the gap between Santa Teresa and Santo Antônio hills.
• Since the late nineteenth century, the top has served as a viaduct for the Santa Teresa tramway.

The full story

Rio’s early centre struggled to obtain reliable fresh water from streams beyond the swampy urban core. Plans to channel the Carioca River appeared by the early seventeenth century, but technical and financial problems slowed the work. A first aqueduct reached a fountain near today’s Largo da Carioca in 1723. When that system deteriorated, governor Gomes Freire de Andrade commissioned a larger structure from Portuguese military engineer José Fernandes Pinto Alpoim. Inaugurated in 1750, its most dramatic section bridged the space between the Santa Teresa and Santo Antônio hills. Water then fed fountains around the colonial city, including sites now known as Cinelândia and Praça XV. The structure acquired a second life at the end of the nineteenth century when it became the viaduct for the Santa Teresa tramway. That reuse is why the arches still read as infrastructure rather than a detached ruin: the same elevated line that once moved water later carried urban transport.

Useful to know

• View the arches from ground level in Lapa, then compare them with the tram crossing from Santa Teresa.
• Pair the aqueduct with nearby Escadaria Selarón for a compact look at two very different urban landmarks.

Your next visit

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