After renovation, Casa Pacheco Leão will be reopened next Thursday (21); program will include musicals, lectures and workshops
Rio residents and tourists have another cultural option in the South Zone. After renovations, Casa Pacheco Leão, a historic neoclassical building inside the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden, will reopen to the public next Thursday (21), with the unprecedented exhibition “Rota do Chá – Botânica, Cultura e Tradição”. The program will include musical performances, lectures and workshops and will have free admission.
The exhibition traces the history of tea from its ancient origins in China to its global spread, highlighting the rituals, arts and social evolution associated with its production and consumption. The exhibition was organized by Dellarte Soluções Culturais, curated by Alexandre Murucci, and has an investment of approximately R$1.4 million.
According to the administration, the Rio Botanical Garden was the first place in Brazil to introduce the cultivation of the tea plant (Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze), carried out by Chinese people brought by the Portuguese crown especially for this work, in the early 19th century. The military naturalist João Gomes da Silveira Mendonça was in charge of the Botanical Garden between 1809 and 1823, when the Chinese arrived in Brazil and began cultivating it. His successor, Friar Leandro do Sacramento, was a pioneer in the study and publication of material on tea culture in the country.
The reopening of the building and the exhibition are part of the actions to commemorate 50 years of diplomatic relations between Brazil and China. The house will be open from Thursday to Tuesday, from 10 am to 5 pm, and tickets must be collected from the website jbrj.eleventickets.com.
The reform
Closed for about eight years, the house, where the doctor Antônio Pacheco Leão, director of the Botanical Garden from 1915 to 1931, lived, underwent maintenance and restoration work for six months.
With two floors, ten rooms, four bathrooms and a pantry, the property had its original wall colors restored in various shades, as well as the windows, external doors, blue railings and green internal frames.
The artistic paintings on the walls, the staircase and the original flooring were restored, and the property gained an elevator and accessible bathrooms. The entire process was authorized and monitored by the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (Iphan).
— This house was a meeting point for great scientists, such as Adolpho Ducke, João Geraldo Kuhlmann, Alexandre Curt Brade and Alberto Löfgren. It is fascinating to see this place, which preserves so many original details, reopened to the public. Now, everyone will be able to explore the universe of a man who dedicated his life to the study and preservation of the national flora — says the superintendent of Iphan in Rio de Janeiro, Patrícia Wanzeller.
The investment was R$2.7 million, approved by the Ministry of Culture through the Federal Law of Incentive to Culture (Rouanet Law), sponsored by State Grid Brazil Holding and Banco BOCOM BBM.
One of the attractions of the Botanical Garden's cultural corridor, the space was once used as a research laboratory and, for a few years, hosted the Environmental Education Center of the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden.
— The restoration of the Pacheco Leão House returns to society an important historical and cultural heritage of the country. The project brings together botanical science, history and culture, which translates into practice the mission of the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden, which is to conduct and disseminate scientific research, aiming at the conservation of biodiversity. In addition, the House will enhance, with art and excellence, the visiting experience, bringing the public closer to botanical science and history through the tea plant — says the president of the Botanical Garden, Sergio Besserman Vianna.
