59 Fun Facts About Christ the Redeemer

What does Corcovado, the name of the statue's mountain, mean in Portuguese?

Corcovado means 'hunchback' in Portuguese, from the peak's humped granite profile as seen from the city below.

In which artistic style is Christ the Redeemer built?

Art Deco was the height of fashion when the statue was designed in the 1920s; the style takes its name from a 1925 Paris exhibition of modern decorative arts.

Which famous figure, about 46 metres tall without its pedestal, stands half as tall again as Christ the Redeemer?

The Statue of Liberty rises about 46 metres from base to torch, against 30 for the Redeemer, yet weighs less than half as much: its skin is copper sheet only as thick as two pennies, hung on a metal frame.

Christ the Redeemer is 30 metres tall; its outstretched arms span about the length of which of these?

A basketball court is about 28 metres long, the same as the statue from fingertip to fingertip; arms that wide needed an immensely strong frame, so its Brazilian designer travelled to Europe to enlist a leading French engineer.

What two materials is the statue made of?

Reinforced concrete and soapstone: the engineer thought bare concrete too crude, so the figure was skinned in small soapstone tiles, a stone that is easy to cut yet weathers well.

Which direction does the statue face?

East: its designer wanted the figure to face the rising sun, so that it would be the first thing in the city to catch the light each morning.

Who is allowed to climb the stairs inside Christ the Redeemer?

Only maintenance workers may go in: stairs climb through the hollow body, and hatches in the shoulders and head let crews out to inspect the surface.

Before Corcovado was chosen, which Rio landmark was first proposed as the site for the Christ monument?

Sugarloaf Mountain was the first idea, for a bronze Christ at the mouth of the bay, but the organisers switched to Corcovado, the higher peak behind the city.

When Christ the Redeemer was dedicated in 1931, what was Rio's status in Brazil?

The national capital: Rio held that role until Brasília replaced it in 1960, and Brazil's head of government stood beside Rio's archbishop at the statue's dedication.

Which French sculptor made the four-metre model from which Christ the Redeemer was scaled up?

Paul Landowski made the model in his studio at Boulogne, in France; full-size sections were then shipped to Rio and reproduced in concrete.

Which Brazilian engineer designed and built the monument after winning the design competition?

Heitor da Silva Costa won the competition, then spent years in Europe from 1924 settling the final design with a French sculptor and engineer before building it.

A sculptor from which country is credited with modelling Christ the Redeemer's face?

Romania's Gheorghe Leonida had moved to France when the statue's sculptor hired him to model the face; he died in 1942 after falling from his roof while picking linden flowers.

Who glued Christ the Redeemer's small mosaic tiles onto strips of cloth before they were fixed to the figure?

Women volunteers in Rio stuck the tiny stone triangles onto cloth, and some wrote wishes or sweethearts' names on the backs, which are still sealed inside the statue's skin.

Who first suggested a monument on Corcovado, back in the 1850s?

A Catholic priest, the Vincentian Pedro Maria Boss, took the idea to Brazil's imperial family in the 1850s, but it went nowhere and lay dormant for more than sixty years.

Why was the 1850s proposal for a monument on Corcovado finally dropped after 1889?

The new republic separated church and state, which ruled out a state-backed religious monument; Rio's Catholics later revived the idea and paid for it themselves.

In the early 1920s, before Christ the Redeemer was built, what did the electrical company Westinghouse put up on top of Corcovado?

A radio tower stood on the peak while the statue's engineer was rethinking his design, and the figure he settled on, like the tower, took the shape of a cross.

What was Christ holding in early designs?

The first design showed Christ holding a globe in one hand and a cross in the other, but the open-armed figure, read as a symbol of peace, was chosen instead.

From which country was the concrete for the base supplied?

The concrete for the base was shipped from Limhamn, the cement-making district of Malmö in southern Sweden.

Which inventor was meant to switch on the statue's floodlights by radio from Rome at the 1931 opening?

Guglielmo Marconi was to trigger the floodlights by a radio signal sent from Italy, but bad weather interfered and the lights were switched on at the site.

Which was the first reigning pope to visit Christ the Redeemer?

John Paul II came to the statue in July 1980 and blessed the city from it, on the first journey any reigning pope had made to Brazil; the monument was cleaned and repaired for the occasion.

Which skydiver parachuted from the arm of Christ the Redeemer in 1999?

Felix Baumgartner hid at the statue's base overnight, shot a line over its right arm with a crossbow before dawn, climbed out to the hand and jumped, steering down to a waiting getaway car.

What natural hazard had cracked pieces off Christ the Redeemer's head and eyebrows before its 2010 restoration?

Lightning hits the statue several times a year, mostly at its extremities, so a conductor runs over the head like a crown of thorns and out along each arm.

What did vandals do to the statue during its 2010 renovation?

Sprayed paint along the arm: with the statue under scaffolding and its access roads cut by landslides, graffiti writers reached the right arm in April 2010, and the city began cleaning it at once.

Which 2009 disaster film shows Christ the Redeemer crumbling as the world ends?

2012, Roland Emmerich's end-of-the-world blockbuster, topples the statue in an earthquake; the director dropped a similar scene at Mecca's Kaaba for fear of a fatwa.

Why are replacement stones on the statue getting darker over time?

The original pale stone is running out: the architect who led the 2010 restoration said finding stone of the right colour was the hardest part of the job.

When Christ the Redeemer emerged from its 2010 restoration, it was lit green and yellow to mark what?

Brazil playing at the World Cup: the statue came out of four months under scaffolding while the team was playing in South Africa, days before the Netherlands knocked them out.

Which footballer took Christ the Redeemer's place, arms outstretched, in a 1998 Pirelli tyre advert?

Ronaldo stood in for the statue in the tyre maker's 'Power is nothing without control' campaign; Pirelli was then the shirt sponsor of Inter Milan, the club he had joined a year earlier.

Which of these was voted a New 7 Wonder of the World alongside Christ the Redeemer in 2007?

Machu Picchu made the final seven in the 2007 public vote, while the Eiffel Tower, Stonehenge and the Statue of Liberty were all finalists that missed out.

The statue stands within which national park?

Tijuca National Park surrounds the peak; its forest is largely a 19th-century replanting, ordered after coffee farms stripped the hills and the city's water supply began to fail.

Which emperor opened the Corcovado Rack Railway in October 1884?

Pedro II opened the line in October 1884, which makes the railway 47 years older than the statue, and its trains later hauled the statue's pieces up the mountain.

The Corcovado Rack Railway opened in 1884, decades before the statue; what was it built to carry?

Sightseers to the summit view were the whole point: the peak was already a favoured lookout, and the line is billed as Brazil's oldest tourist railway.

What was installed at Christ the Redeemer in 2003 to spare visitors the final climb of over 200 steps?

Escalators and lifts were added because the railway stops short of the summit, which had left every visitor a last climb on foot to the statue's base.

Which bossa nova composer named his 1960 song 'Corcovado' after the mountain beneath the statue?

Antônio Carlos Jobim wrote 'Corcovado' in 1960; given English words, it became the jazz standard 'Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars'.

The trains on the Corcovado Rack Railway have long been built in which European country?

Switzerland: Winterthur's SLM built the electric trains that re-equipped the line in 1980, and when those were retired in 2019 the Swiss firm Stadler built faster replacements.

Which of these famous passengers is recorded as having ridden the Corcovado railway?

Albert Einstein is on the railway's list of famous riders, with Santos-Dumont and Princess Diana; Charles Darwin, often named among Corcovado's visitors, died two years before the line opened.

The sculptor of Christ the Redeemer won a gold medal for a statue of a boxer at which 1928 event?

The Olympic Games then held art contests alongside the sport, and his 'Boxer' took the sculpture gold at Amsterdam in 1928.

A Rio carnival street party that parades below the statue is cheekily named after which part of Christ?

His armpit: the Suvaco do Cristo street party parades through Jardim Botânico, the neighbourhood lying directly beneath the statue's outstretched arms.

Albert Caquot, who engineered Christ the Redeemer's internal frame, designed what for the First World War?

Observation balloons: Caquot's design, steadied by three inflatable tail lobes, rode the wind far better than older types, and the Allies built it by the thousand to spot for artillery.

The statue's French-Polish sculptor won which prestigious prize in 1900 with a statue of David?

The sculptor won the Prix de Rome in 1900 with 'David combattant Goliath', earning the traditional years of study at the Villa Medici in Rome.

Cochabamba's Cristo de la Concordia, built slightly taller than Rio's statue, stands in which country?

Bolivia's Cristo de la Concordia was modelled on Rio's statue and, when finished in 1994, overtook it in height; a cable car spares visitors the long climb up San Pedro Hill.

Why was the Christ the King statue in Świebodzin, Poland, built exactly 33 metres tall?

Jesus' age at his death, traditionally 33, fixed the figure's height; a local priest drove the project, and the town's residents paid for it through donations.

Portugal's Christ the King sanctuary at Almada was inspired by whose 1934 visit to Rio's statue?

The Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon saw Rio's statue in 1934; Portugal's bishops later vowed a monument of their own if the country stayed out of the Second World War, and it opened in 1959.

Christ of the Ozarks, an open-armed statue of Jesus, stands near Eureka Springs in which US state?

Arkansas: Gerald L. K. Smith, a far-right preacher and agitator, built the statue in 1966 to anchor the religious attractions he was creating at Eureka Springs, and he is buried at its foot.

Which parts of Christ the Redeemer were sculpted full size in France and shipped to Rio?

The head and hands crossed the Atlantic as full-size models, nearly four metres tall for the head, and were copied in concrete; the rest was scaled up from a four-metre figure.

A 32-metre Christ the King statue stands on a seaside hill at Vũng Tàu in which Asian country?

Vietnam: the country's Catholic Church began the statue in 1974 on a hill above the resort of Vũng Tàu, but it took twenty years to finish.

Christ the Redeemer looks out over which bay, first entered by Portuguese explorers on New Year's Day 1502?

Guanabara Bay was reached on 1 January 1502, and the explorers named the place 'January River', the name the city still carries.

Which Brazilian princess is tied to the first proposal, in the 1850s, for a Christian monument on Corcovado?

Isabel, the emperor's heir, appears in accounts of the 1850s plan as its honouree or its hoped-for patron; three decades later she signed the Golden Law that abolished slavery in Brazil.

Which action franchise set its fifth film, a heist story, in Rio beneath Christ the Redeemer?

Fast & Furious set Fast Five in Rio, yet most of it was shot in Puerto Rico, which stood in for the city's streets and favelas; the statue appears in aerial shots that a separate unit filmed in Rio itself.

In 1910 the Corcovado Rack Railway became the first line in Brazil to run on what?

Electricity replaced steam on the Corcovado line in 1910, a national first, so it was electric trains that later carried the statue's pieces to the summit.

The sculptor of Christ the Redeemer also made the statue of Sainte Geneviève that watches over which city from a bridge pylon?

Paris: Sainte Geneviève is the city's patron saint, and the sculptor's figure of her has stood on a tall pylon of the Pont de la Tournelle since 1928.

What was the statue's construction cost, in the money of the day?

About $250,000 in the money of the day built the statue, and most of it came from the donations of Brazilian Catholics, not from the state.

From which Rio neighbourhood does the Corcovado Rack Railway set out?

Cosme Velho, at the mountain's foot, is where the trains leave from; the climb is too steep for smooth wheels to grip, so a cogwheel under each train hauls it up a toothed rail.

In the 1500s, Corcovado was first named after the Gospel mountain where who showed Christ all the kingdoms of the world?

The Devil tempts Christ with that view in the Gospels, and the peak's own sweeping outlook earned it the name Pinnacle of Temptation; four centuries on, it was given a statue of Christ himself.

The statue's foundation stone was laid to mark which national anniversary?

Brazil's independence centenary fell in 1922, when the foundation stone was laid, but the statue missed the anniversary by nine years and was dedicated only in 1931.

UNESCO's World Heritage listing for Rio covers Corcovado and its statue as part of what?

A mountain-to-sea landscape: UNESCO listed the setting, from forested peaks to the bays, because hills and water shaped the city, and it names Corcovado's statue of Christ within it.

What did a storm in January 2014 break off Christ the Redeemer?

A finger on the right hand was hit in a January 2014 storm and lost its tip; crews then ran the statue's protective rods out to the fingertips.

The chapel consecrated beneath the statue in 2006 is named after which patron saint of Brazil?

Our Lady of the Apparition, Nossa Senhora Aparecida, gives the chapel its name; its consecration made the site a sanctuary, so couples can now marry at the statue's foot.

A lift inside Brazil's Christ the Protector statue, finished in 2022, takes visitors to a lookout in which part of the figure?

The heart: the lift rises to an opening in the chest that looks out over the valley; the mayor who championed the statue died in 2021, a year before it was finished.

What perceived trend motivated Rio's Catholic Circle to push for Christ the Redeemer after the First World War?

Growing godlessness was the fear, and the group saw a giant Christ, visible from every part of the city, as a way to reclaim Rio for the faith.