Christ the Redeemer is an Art Deco statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, created by French-Polish sculptor Paul Landowski and built by Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, in collaboration with French engineer Albert Caquot. Romanian sculptor Gheorghe Leonida sculpted the face. Constructed between 1922 and 1931, the statue is 30 meters (98 ft) high, excluding its 8-meter (26 ft) pedestal. The arms stretch 28 meters (92 ft) wide. It is made of reinforced concrete and soapstone. Christ the Redeemer differs considerably from its original design, as the initial plan was a large Christ with a globe in one hand and a cross in the other. Although the project organizers originally accepted the design, it later changed to the statue of today, with the arms spread out wide.
The statue weighs 635 metric tons (625 long, 700 short tons), and is located at the peak of the 700-meter (2,300 ft) Corcovado mountain in the Tijuca National Park overlooking the city of Rio de Janeiro. This statue is the largest Art Deco–style sculpture in the world. A symbol of Christianity around the world, the statue has also become a cultural icon of both Rio de Janeiro and Brazil and was voted one of the New 7 Wonders of the World.
Vincentian priest Pedro Maria Boss first suggested placing a Christian monument on Mount Corcovado in the mid-1850s to honor Princess Isabel, regent of Brazil and the daughter of Emperor Pedro II, but the project was not approved. In 1889, the country became a republic, and owing to the separation of church and state, the proposed statue was dismissed.
The Catholic Circle of Rio made a second proposal for a landmark statue on the mountain in 1920. The group organized an event called Semana do Monumento (“Monument Week”) to attract donations and collect signatures to support the building of the statue. The organization was motivated by what they perceived as “Godlessness” in the society. The donations came mostly from Brazilian Catholics. The designs considered for the “Statue of the Christ” included a representation of the Christian cross, a statue of Jesus with a globe in his hands, and a pedestal symbolizing the world. Eventually, the statue of Christ the Redeemer with open arms, a symbol of peace, was chosen.
Local engineer Heitor da Silva Costa and artist Carlos Oswald designed the statue. French sculptor Paul Landowski created the work. In 1922, Landowski commissioned fellow Parisian Romanian sculptor Gheorghe Leonida, who studied sculpture at the Fine Arts Conservatory in Bucharest and in Italy.
A group of engineers and technicians studied Landowski’s submissions, and they felt building the structure out of reinforced concrete (designed by Albert Caquot) instead of steel was more suitable for the cross-shaped statue. The concrete making up the base was supplied from Limhamn, Sweden. The outer layers are soapstone, chosen for its enduring qualities and ease of use. Construction took nine years, from 1922 to 1931, and cost the equivalent of US$250,000 (equivalent to $4,300,000 in today) and the monument opened on October 12, 1931. During the opening ceremony, the statue was to be lit by a battery of floodlights turned on remotely by Italian shortwave radio inventor Guglielmo Marconi, stationed 9,200 kilometers (5,700 mi) away in Rome but because of bad weather, the lights were activated on site.
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