Governor's Palace
Many sketches of this palace made by the architect responsible for its construction were preserved, allowing us to see the successive reforms and alterations it underwent. There are three projects, and several versions of the third
one, but the building is currently very different from the one originally built.
Its floor plan is an almost perfect square, distributed around a central rectangular patio. On the back of the building, there was a large garden with symmetrical designs that could be flowerbeds and two rows of trees or bushes. The garden was surrounded by walls and there was a portico on the semicircular edge of the entrance. A waterfall next to it is mentioned in documents of the time .This garden disappeared in 1970, with the construction of a modern building, which also destroyed the visibility of the later loggia, now hardly noticeable between the two constructions.
The building's original structure was maintained practically intact, but reforms have altered its exterior appearance. There seems to have been two stages of modifications. On the first, a platband was introduced surrounding the whole
building, but the mansard roof was maintained, as well as all door and window frames. The upper portion of its central body lost the lateral scrolls, and obelisks were added to the triangular pediment.
On a second occasion, seemingly coinciding with the reforms made in 1904 by Governor Augusto Montenegro, the façade was greatly altered and its bossages uniformized, its frames were changed and the entrance was divided into three doors topped by balconies, supported by decorative elements in lioz stone, like the upper window. Inside, the changes were even more glaring. It was decorated with period furniture and Eclectic paintings, with Pompeiian and Classical motifs on the upper floor, made by French artist Joseph Casse. On the ground floor, the walls were covered with marbleized drawings. On the central patio, a balcony was built with a covering in iron and glass. An Art Nouveau stained glass panel was added to the staircase walls.
Decorative paintings on this palace's upper-floor rooms are illustrative of the predominant taste in rubber-economy Pará. Profusely decorated in the early 20 th century, these rooms were filled with luxurious furniture from Europe.
The chapel, hidden for a long time under defacing reforms, is worthy of notice, in view of the singular design of Antônio Landi's(1713-1791) projects. The spatiality recovered by the restoration, as well as details of frames and the altar's flaming urn, make this small chapel one of the greatest attractions among the remaining traits of the original 18th-century construction of Governors's Palace.