Author: Yuli Zhao

Goodbye Rio

Today is our last day in this beautiful costal city but I believe no one wants to leave. After visiting the Maracana Stadium, Vanessa took us to the biggest local market Feira de Sao Cristovao. This market is totally different from the Hippie Fair. Most stuff which sold in Hippie Fair is hand made products with good quality and very unique. And because it near the beach areas, there were many tourists coming around and picked gifts for their trip. This market we visit today looks like serve for the local people in stead of tourists. Things here are much cheaper and the quality is less good than products we bought in Hippie Fair. But it is a good culture experience to see what Rio people come to buy for their daily life.

This afternoon is our last time to enjoy Rio. It is really hard to decide how to spend the last few hours. We six girls find a really cute cafe near Copacabana and enjoy the Brazilian deserts and nice coffee there. Everyone of us is not willing to leave this fantastic city. Anyway, our amazing trip will end in today but our friendship and precious memory will never end.

See you Rio!
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Maracana and Soccer Tradition

Today is the last day in Rio and we come to the Maracana Stadium. Maracana is one of the most famous soccer stadium in the world and has hold countless important soccer games since it was built, like the World Cup last year. It is a very successful stadium with the clear circulation for players, audiences, and staff. Different function areas are well arranged to meet various needs of different groups. Seats are painted in blue and yellow colors to represent their country with the green color of the grass together. It is really an excellent idea. Even the stadium is empty when there is no game playing, it is still full of color.

Honestly, I am so so so exited to visit here. Especially when I enter the main soccer field with the cheers coming from the broadcast, I even can imagine the players coming from the lounge to begin the game. I am a super soccer fan and always dreaming to watch a game of my favorite team, the Spain National Team. Although they failed in 2014 World Cup, their fans will never give up on them just like every member will never give up on their loved soccer.

I am not familiar with the South America soccer team, but I still feel so regret for not going to the soccer game on Wensday night. Maybe in the future I will have opportunity to watch soccer game and feel the passion of fans and sport.

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Tropical Plants Worlds

We visited Sitio Roberto Burle Marx two days ago and it was a fantastic experience to see the very different tropical plants work together and create the very typical tropic style environment. Roberto Burle Marx is the master landscape architect in Brazil, just like how famous Oscar Niemeyer in architecture field in this country. Sitio Roberto Burle Marx was his manor and working place and he collected about 3,500 species tropical plants to create his private landscape world.

As a person lives in temperate regions in the most of the time, I have never seen so many tropical plants and I can not name any of them. Roberto Burle Marx is a genius for using and collocating different plants to create various atmosphere. I was impressed by two things: scales and colors. There are so many species that it is a hard thing to well organize all of them but Marx used diverse plants with their various sizes of leaves and put them together to form textures and give different sense in different areas in his manor. Because of the diversity of the species, the colors of the vegetations are countless. Despite the showy colors of the flowers, the green colors of all the foliage are never the same. There are so many kinds of green colors as well as orange and yellow color and they all together create a colorful tropical worlds.

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Niemeyer’s Architecture World

It is a precious experience to visit four Niemeyer’s projects and explore his architecture world in one day. The trip gives me a very clear sense of his design concept. Every Niemeyer’s architecture can be considered as a sculpture art work and the use of concrete to create the pure form and interior space is really masterpiece. As a former architecture student, I was not familiar with Niemeyer and his works before I learned him in our class. But today, I am totally attracted by his architecture spaces.

In my view, all the four projects are similar in some ways: one volume split by the line — the ramp. As the guide mentioned, Niemeyer’s stylised shape in his work is inspired and represented the curves of Brazilian women. While, I am more interested in the inner space of his project instead. Especially walking in the Oscar Niemeyer Foundation building, we can see the fantastic interior space created by the architectural shape, light, and shade. The architecture makes the material alive in Niemeyer’s world! However, I regret for the present function of the building. I do not think it a good space for office use but a best space for exhibition.

Another thing I am a little disappointed is the lack of consideration of landscape in his work and none of these projects we visit today has landscape design. Well, forget about this and see wonderful photos I take today in Oscar Niemeyer Foundation building!

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Exploration of Rio Downtown

Today is really a busy walking day! We were walking all day through Rio’s downtown area and visited many wonderful places. It is also the first day we use the public transportation in Rio. The subway is much better than what I thought before I get on it. It is neat and  well ordered. One thing need to mention, we met a nice musician in the train and everyone enjoyed his music during the short trip.

Rio’s downtown like many metropolis all over the world: high-rise, high density, large amount of traffic and people, and always busy road. The city has very unique sidewalk using the local white and black stone as materials and sometimes have special patterns. The other phenomenon I considered during today’s trip is the mix of old building and modern architecture. It is also common in most cities with a long history like many European cities and  Asian cities such as Paris and Beijing. How the old and new architectures coexist in the modern society is a fantastic thing. There are some examples below.

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The Real em revista library we visited today is the architecture I like most. I was very interested in it when the classmates introduced it in the neighborhood presentation because I am always dreaming having a wall filled with books I love. And today, I am shocked by the book walls and the well preservation of both the interior and exterior of the architecture. The details of the shelves and columns as well as the skylight window are elaborate.

Interior of the Library Book WallSkylight Window