PRAÇA DA LIBERDADE
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Place de la Liberté, lined with palm trees, a meeting place for local residents, with new buildings in a variety of styles.
Belo Horizonte is a planned city, built ex nihilo from 1895 onwards, to replace the former state capital Vila Rica de Ouro Preto, which was too enclosed in the mountains. Liberty Square was inaugurated when the city was founded, between 1895 and 1897, to house the state government of Minas Gerais. Influenced by the English naturalist wave, it is lined with huge palm trees, and is densely planted with trees in its center. Transformed in the French garden style of the 1920s, it took on the air of a small Versailles, gaining in symmetry and embellished with beautiful statues. The buildings that flank it follow the trends of the time, with their neoclassical elements and grandiose eclectic style. The Palácio da Liberdade (Governors' Palace) is the most edifying example. Over the years, the square was enriched by new buildings in a variety of styles. In the 1940s, the Palácio Cristo Rei introduced Art Deco. In the 1950s and 1960s, more modernist buildings were incorporated into the complex, such as the Niemeyer building, the Luiz de Bessa public library and the Casa Fiat. In the 1980s, the post-modernist Rainha da Sucata building was inaugurated. This square has a real social role in Belo Horizonte, as it is a meeting place for all the inhabitants. On Sundays, it is transformed into a veritable athletics stadium, where athletes of all levels and ages come to jog.
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