Calçadas: black and white and global

Mosaic sidewalks in black and white are an iconic feature of the beachfront in Rio de Janeiro. Undulating patterns and curved modernist checkerboards line the beachfront in Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon, with a specific pattern for each neighborhood. They are skillfully laid by hand with limestone and basalt stones cut ins squares and rectangles. I first encountered them in Brazil, then in Mozambique and Portugal. They are found in all the former colonies of Portugal—but how did this come to be?

History teaches that ships sailing empty to pick up goods from the colonies were too light in the water, so weight (ballast) needed to be added to make the vessels easier to control. Calçada stones were a convenient source of weight that could be removed on arrival at the destination, when gold, spices, sugar and cotton, and it must be acknowledged, enslaved people, made the return trip to Portugal or on to other locations.

The story of the first calçada seems farfetched, but I will repeat it here. King Manuel I ruled Portugal from 1495 to 1521, a period of global expansion of the Portuguese realm. The King sponsored the explorer Vasco da Gama, who discovered the sea route to India. Territories in the Americas and Africa were established and trade with Asia flourished. King Manuel was given a gift one year for his birthday—a rhinoceros. He ordered his birthday procession to be led by the rhinoceros and its handlers. The roads were muddy, and the two-ton animal with its massive hooved feet slung mud on the royal procession. It is said that the King ordered the road to be paved in order to avoid such messy outcomes in the future, and thus the first calçada was created.

There were no doubt many such calçadas created after the first one, but the cataclysmic Lisbon earthquake of 1755 destroyed all evidence of them. A century later calçadas were again laid in Lisbon and Porto, in beautiful designs in black and white that brought people out to admire them. The technique then spread to Macau and Portuguese colonies beyond.

The first calçadas were placed in Brazil in 1906 in Rio’s Copacabana and the Amazon capital of Manaus using the Mar Lago (note to Americans: no, not Mar-a-Lago) pattern of undulating waves. In 1960 landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx, noted for his bold work in the new capital of Brasília, expanded the Mar Lago sidewalk in Copacabana, tripling its size and changing the orientation of the waves from perpendicular to parallel to the ocean.

I was taken by the hypnotic beauty of the mosaic calçadas in Rio when I first visited there, then enchanted when I discovered them in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. And later, in my new home in Portugal, where they often take the form of major designs such as sextants and caravelas, oceangoing sailing ships.

Calçadas have come under criticism in recent years because although they are unique and beautiful, they are uneven and difficult to traverse for people with mobility challenges or those who use wheelchairs. I love them but I respect them, and I walk carefully paying close attention. I injured my foot a few years ago walking on a cobblestone walkway in the Northeast of Brazil. On return to the US my American health care provider colleagues asked me about “the mechanism of injury,” which is how we clinicians seek to understand what happened. My answer? I was walking like an American.

Photo by Roberto Huczek on Unsplash