Samba city is the new all year around carnival attraction in Brazil! The 14 best samba schools in Rio, called the ‘group especial’ or the special group, has a great area of 93,000 m2 where they get their own building to rehearse and prepare for the February/march carnival elation in the Sambodrome.

Tourists can come to visit the schools free and take part in the preparations either on one of the many dance table galleries there or as a spectator! All though it might be hard not to move the body to the pounding batteria often consisting of hundreds of drums and percussion instruments. More about Cidade do Samba, opening hours and prices here!

Samba City in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will have 14 buildings (also called barracões), one for each of the samba troops. The buildings will be around 20m high divided into 3 floors and designed for the construction and maintenance of enormous carnival wagons called the ‘Carros Alegóricos’.

The first floor will have a big machine system with lifts for transporting pieces and equipment, which will help greatly in the construction process for the carnival floats. The second floor will be for administration, painting, sewing the magnificent carnival costumes and so on.

The layout of the buildings will be arranged around a common and central area with an open landscape acting as a carnival dance table gallery for the samba schools (‘Escolas de Samba’) to march and present them selves. Tourists will be able to see everything from catwalks built around the second floors of the Samba city buildings.

Every look will be converged to a central point; the big square that will have 2 tensioned canvasas for special presentations made by the winner school of the year and other events!

“Every building will be different” says the architect Vitor Wanderlay, creator and responsible for the Samba City (‘ A Cidade do Samba ‘) project. “But every one of the buildings will have their own advantage. The shape of the land did not allow us to plan and divide each one just like the other. But everyone of them will have a catwalk in front of what will be the second floor in order for the tourists to see what is going on inside each of the first floor buildings. Each building has an order to be chosen; the samba schools that wins the first places will have the right to choose its building first and so on.” Continues Wanderlay.

In between colourful samba dance table galleries and waving carnival parades, there will also be stores or quiosques ( 4 of them ) of 100 m2 each for travellers to buy souvenirs.

“An interesting thing that will happen inside one of the old trains that is still there, is that it will turn out to be a snack bar or a restaurant inside of it!” says Wanderley

There will also be 2 restaurants for tourists to get a Brazilian meal and a guarana, which is mineral water made from a fruit in the Amazon forest.

And the best thing about it all if you want to dance the dance table galleries of Samba city is that you don’t have to pay a dime! There are no tickets to enter, you will just have to spend money in case you want to buy something inside the place!

All security will be provided and hired by the league of Samba schools.

Different views on Samba City in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil !
Samba City brings curiosity, and excitement to many! Others await the result with sceptisism and critics. Samba City is still being built and will be opened sometime in 2005. When is hard to say. One thing is for sure; "A Cidade do Samba " will certainly make its mark on the samba capitol of Rio de Janeiro!

Interview with the creator of Samba City, A Cidade do Samba, in Rio de Janeiro
Where does the idea of Samba City come from? Vitor Wanderley, the creator and responsible architect answers questions about the forthcoming great tourist attraction of Rio de Janeiro!

From Samba city dance table galleries back to Sambacity.info