Delighted with the shape of Guanabara Bay, Corbusier suggested that the building should be located next to the sea, instead of on an inner downtown street, but the government declined The project was extremely bold for the time.

It also employed local materials and techniques, such as azulejos, blue and white glazed tiles linked to the Portuguese Colonial tradition, in modern wall murals.

Tropical sunshine on northern glass walls is controlled by Corbusian brises-soleil (sun-shades) made adjustable in a system that was the first of its kind in the world.

[1] Modernism gained great momentum as a significant "turning of the page" aesthetic, from the "old" Brazil of Eurocentric post-colonial urban sensibilities, and a countrywide rural, undeveloped and impoverished, and conservative image.

Members of the design group developed a uniquely Brazilian Modern architectural vocabulary, creating a style that became virtually official and predominant in the country into the 1980s.

Beside Costa, Oscar Niemeyer, and Roberto Burle Marx, were responsible in the late 1950s and early 1960s for the master plan, architecture, and landscape design of the new national capital of Brasília.

Affonso Eduardo Reidy designed the Museum of Modern Art—MAM (Museu de Arte Moderna, 1955) located there, and Burle Marx its gardens.

Getúlio Vargas, interim president and dictator from 1930 to 1945, jailed leftists and copied elements of Italian fascism in his attempted re-founding of Brazil as an "Estado Novo," or "New State."

The building was added by Brazil to its UNESCO World Heritage tenative list in 1996, and indication the country intends to pursue full inscription under the cultural criteria.