São Paulo’s Portuguese language museum re-emerges from the flames

On Thursday evening, Brazilian social media was awash with shocking footage of a blaze at a warehouse belonging to the Cinemateca Brasileira in São Paulo, home to much of Brazil’s cinema archive. Yet, fires at public buildings are hardly a rare occurrence in the country. In 2019, flames consumed roughly 90 percent of the collection housed at Rio de Janeiro’s National Museum, nearly causing the building to collapse. 

And in São Paulo, the city’s historic Estação da Luz train station caught fire in December 2015, destroying the Museu da Língua Portuguesa — or Portuguese Language Museum — in the process, housed in the station’s top floor.

According to the fire brigade, the blaze was caused by a short circuit in the building’s first floor. One firefighter died while trying to control the flames.

Much of the museum’s archive is digital, so was not damaged and has been restored by way of backups. However, the almost 150-year-old building — built in Glasgow, Scotland in the 1860s and assembled in São Paulo — suffered significant damage.

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