Founded in 1565, few cities in South America have a history as colourful and complex as Rio de Janeiro or a culture as creative. These buildings tell the story of the political, economic and social trends that have shaped 451 years of Rio life and continue to change it today.

São Bento Monastery

Rua Dom Gerardo 40, Rio de Janeiro

In the early days of its history, Rio was primarily a military base for the Portuguese, with a fast-growing sugar industry and an expanding population of African and indigenous slaves. Brazilian territory in those days was ruled directly from Portugal and shared the mother country's religious and artistic culture. Surviving buildings from these times are mainly military forts or churches, convents and monasteries.

Nestled on a hill above the city centre, the 17th-century São Bento Monastery is one of the oldest buildings in Rio (Photo: Visit Rio/Alexandre Macieira)

An oasis of peace located right in the heart of Rio's hectic business district, the Monastery of São Bento is the most evocative legacy of this early period. Financed by sugar cane income and built by slave labour, the church's 17th-century structure is designed in the Mannerist style of the Renaissance. The great glory of the church is its baroque and rococo decorated interior, covered with gilded wood carving.

Paço Imperial

Praca 15 de Novembro 48, Rio de Janeiro

Fast forward a century and the gold discoveries of southeastern Brazil have turned Rio de Janeiro into one of the main metropolises of South America. In 1763, in recognition of the city's stategic importance, the capital of the colony of Brazil moved to Rio from Salvador.

The Paço Imperial in Praça XV is one of the most visible testimonies to the city's new status. Built in 1743 and renovated in 2010, this sober and austere structure served as the residence first for the governors of colonial Brazil and then for the kings of Portugal when they fled to Brazil during the Napoleonic wars. Few buildings in Brazil have witnessed as much history as the Paço Imperial, now a popular cultural centre in one of the city's busiest squares.

 In the 18th century Rio became the colonial capital.The Paço Imperial housed Portuguese viceroys and monarchs (Photo: Visit Rio)

Theatro Municipal

Praca Marechal Floriano, Rio de Janeiro

While the Monastery of São Bento and the Paço Imperial reflect the power of the Church and the monarchy respectively, our next building, the Municipal Theatre, is tribute to the rise of a new force in Brazil: the middle class.

This opulent masterpiece opened its doors in 1909 at the height of the belle époque, exactly 20 years after the proclamation of the Brazilian Republic. Inspired by the Paris Opéra, the columns of Italian marble, the granite steps, copper-plated rotundas and ornate art nouveau flourishes of the facade leave little doubt as to who were the new masters in town.

The Theatro Municipal in central Rio was inaugurated in 1909 and completely restored for its centenary year (Photo: Visit Rio)

This is the Rio of Brazil's greatest writer: Machado de Assis, the chronicler of the life of the carioca bourgeoisie in the 19th century.

Dominated by a romantically sweeping staricase, the luxurious foyer and interior, all stained glass, onyx, mosaics and crystal, with ceilings painted by local symbolist Eliseu Visconti, confidently showcase the wealth of the capital of an independent, fast industrialising country.

Palácio Gustavo Capanema

Rua Da Imprensa, 16, Rio de Janeiro

Built in the late 1930s and early 1940s. a veritable who's who of Brazilian architects worked on this building, overseen by none other than Le Corbusier himself. One of the first modernist buildings in the world, a team of local architects including Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Lúcio Costa and a young Oscar Niemeyer, supported by landscaping genius Roberto Burle Marx, all had a hand in designing this masterpiece.

The North Facade of the Gustavo Capanema Palace. Construction began in 1936 (Photo: Wikipedia)

The building is one of the finest examples of the cosmopolitan, experimental spirit of carioca culture at the time, the Brazil of modernists such as artists Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, Cândido Portinari and Tarsila do Amaral and of composers such as Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Like much of the country's arts of the period, it blends brand-new modernist principles from Europe with Brazilian touches such as coloured tiling on the walls and outside pilotis for cooling breezes to come through.

The Capanema Palace is also representative of the bureaucratic political system which evolved in the mid-20th century in Brazil and which largely persists to this day.

The southern entrance to the Gustavo Capanema Palace, with the famous pilotis and the tiling by Cândido Portinari (Photo: Wikipedia)

Named after an early minister of education, the building was commissioned by the controversial centralising government of Getúlio Vargas, whose legacy is often blamed for the continuing inefficiencies of the Brazilian economy.

For all its lifetime the Capanema Palace has been used by government. Currently the Rio home of the Ministry of Education and Culture, the building's open square remains a popular spot for political protest and artistic performances.

Cidade das Artes

Av. das Américas , 5300,  Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro

It was a bitter blow for Rio when the capital of the country moved to Brasília in 1960, a blow from which it struggled for decades to recover.

Apart from a handful of notable exceptions, much of the architecture in subsequent decades was undistinguished and uninspired, reflecting the city's lack of direction and its struggles to adapt to a diminished economic role and to mounting social troubles.

A renaissance in Rio's fortunes began in the first decade of the 21st century, fuelled by oil discoveries, governmental spending, the rise of a new class of consumers and of course by the award of the 2016 Olympic Games.

Inaugurated in 2013 in Barra da Tijuca, the extraordinary Cidade das Artes has transformed cultural life in the new neighhbourhoods of western Rio (Photo: Cidade das Artes)

Contemporary architecture that represents this confident, forward-looking new chapter in Rio's history include the brand-new Museu do Amanhã (the Museum of Tomorrow) in the historic port district in the centre of the city.

Near the main cluster of Olympic venues in Barra da Tijuca, the extraordinary shape of the Cidade das Artes, designed by Pritzker prize-winning French architect Christian de Portzamparc, echoes the stunning natural landscapes and seascapes of the city.

As Rio's economy moves out of downtown and towards the west, and shifts away from industry and towards services, consumption and leisure, this post-modern masterpiece is perhaps the most representative landmark of 21st century Rio.