• PHOTO FINISH
ARRESTING IMAGES FROM THE ANNALS OF THE PAST
High mass 1931
An icon of Rio de Janeiro and a worldwide symbol of Brazil, the 30-metre-tall statue known as Christ the Redeemer was officially unveiled on 12 October 1931. Up to 500 priests took part in the dedication ceremony, shown here, which saw the statue receiving a blessing to the sounds of citywide bellringing. The event was also supposed to see the structure illuminated by a bank of floodlights – switched on by a radio signal from Rome – but this was halted due to poor weather; instead, the lights were activated at the site itself. While Christ the Redeemer may be less than a century old, there had been plans for erecting a Christian monument on Rio’s Mount Corcovado since the 1850s. It was only in 1922, to mark 100 years of Brazil’s independence, that the foundation stone was laid, with engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, artist Carlos Oswald and sculptor Paul Landowski all contributing to the design. A Romanian sculptor, Gheorghe Leonida, had the honour of creating Christ’s face.