by Alvaro Loureiro Oliveira
March 01, 2006
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Considered one of the wonders of the modern world, the Christ the Redeemer monument in Rio de Janeiro celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2006. Now, so many years after its inauguration – and even longer since its conception ten years earlier – controversy has arisen as to the work’s ownership, and worse yet, as to who royalties for its reproduction is due.
While the heirs of sculptor Paul Landowski claim rights, the heirs of Brazilian Heitor da Silva Costa have produced important documents shedding light on the facts and putting an end to discussions about who has rights to the work.
The statue’s history began in 1921 when, as the 100th anniversary of Brazil’s independence approached, the Catholic Circle of Rio de Janeiro initiated a viability study for the construction of a monument in honor of Christ the Redeemer.
Numerous designs were submitted to an examining board, which selected the contribution of architect and engineer Heitor da Silva Costa. Although the original design was somewhat different, Silva Costa’s studies culminated in the symbolic representation of the Christ figure with arms outstretched to suggest a cross.
Based on the studies and sketches, and with important collaboration by the Brazilian drawer and painter Carlos Oswald, Silva Costa prepared two scale models. He then parted for Europe, where an engineering firm assisted in calculating the monument’s structural requirements and a statue maker was engaged to refine plans for building the monument.
In France, Silva Costa commissioned Paul Landowski: he admired the sculptor’s work and identified it as consistent with his vision for the monument. Commissioned and duly compensated for his work, Landowski helped Silva Costa build one to four-meter scale models, essential to the transposition of the final, thirty-meter statue. Landowski was also responsible for the plaster mold of the face and hands of the Christ image.
Thus the question: who then holds the rights for the architectural monument to Christ the Redeemer? An architect-engineer conceived, executed and made the work; a painter was responsible for the sketches; and a statue maker built the scale models. Ownership rights, then, belong to the three artists.
However, in the project’s contract, the statue’s ownership rights were permanently assigned to the commissioning party, the Civil Society Christ the Redeemer Monument Commission, now incorporated by the Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro. It, then, is responsible for managing these rights, and consequently for any royalties due for use or reproduction of the monument.
The location of the document signed by Silva Costa and the others is unknown, but the contract clearly stipulates the yielding of these rights as a condition for Silva Costa’s completion of the project. Since he did in fact complete the work, the conclusion is obvious, and the writings of Paul Landowski support this deduction: they formally record his yielding of ownership rights related to his participation in the work, at the request of Silva Costa.
Thus, the heirs of Heitor da Silva Costa, Carlos Oswald and Paul Landowski hold the work’s moral rights and should fight for recognition of their forebears’ collaboration, demanding that the respective names be cited wherever authorship is credited and preventing any substantial changes to the monument.
The timing could not be better for this restoration of the statue’s memory: celebrations of the monument’s 75th anniversary are the ideal moment for sealing the creators´ names in the national and international memory. After all, the Christ the Redeemer monument, conceived, executed, and built by Heitor da Silva Costa, with sketches by Carlos Oswald and scale models by Paul Landowski, is a historical landmark and symbolizes the city of Rio de Janeiro, even Brazil itself. It is the image that internationally represents the country.