Gustavo Capanema Palace

The Gustavo Capanema Palace (in Portuguese, Palácio Gustavo Capanema), also known architecturally as the Ministry of Education and Health Building, is a government office building in the Centro district of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

It is one of the finest examples of Brazilian 1930s modernist architecture, designed in 1935 and 1936. It was designed by a team composed of Lucio Costa (future designer of the master plan of Brazil's modernist capital Brasília), along with Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Ernani Vasconcellos, Carlos Leão, Jorge Machado Moreira, and Roberto Burle Marx. Oscar Niemeyer, who became Brazil's best-known architect later, had a role as an intern in Costa's office. The group invited renowned Swiss-French Modernist architect Le Corbusier to oversee the project. Construction was begun by the Getúlio Vargas government in 1939 and was completed in 1943, to house Brazil's new Ministry of Education and Health.

In 1960 the national capital moved to Brasília, and the building became a regional Rio office for the ministry. The Ministry of Education and Health has since been divided into three: the Ministry of Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Culture, all in the building to the present day.

The building is named after author and educator Gustavo Capanema, who was the first Minister of Education of Brazil. It is located at Rua da Imprensa, 16, in the downtown Rio area of Castelo. Delighted with the shape of Guanabara Bay, Corbusier suggested that the building should be located next to the sea, instead of on an inner downtown street, but the government declined

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