Rio: Lapa, Santa Teresa and Glória

The towering white arches that frame Lapa look like a Roman monument dropped into the middle of Rio. In a way, that was the ambition, though the original goal was far more practical. The city desperately needed clean drinking water.

Back in the early eighteenth century, fresh water was a persistent crisis. An earlier aqueduct had been channeling water from the Carioca River down to the city since 1723, but it was fragile and struggled to keep up. So in 1750, colonial authorities replaced it with this monumental stone bridge: forty-two arches marching across the valley, carrying the Carioca River straight into what is now Largo da Carioca. For over a century, this was Rio's lifeline.

When we stand beneath them today, it is hard to imagine this was once purely about plumbing, until the city outgrew it. By the late nineteenth century, modern underground pipes arrived, leaving this massive stone bridge without a purpose. Instead of tearing it down, engineers found an unexpected second life for it in 1896. They laid tracks across the top and turned the aqueduct into a viaduct for electric streetcars, ferrying passengers from the flats of Lapa straight up into the steep hills of Santa Teresa.

Down below, Praça Cardeal Câmara became one of Rio's great gathering grounds, where music and nightlife spill out under the arches. What began as an urgent municipal lifeline ended up anchoring neighbourhood life, carrying commuters across the sky while the party carries on underneath.