Lacerda Elevator, Salvador
The Art Deco tower that stitches Salvador’s two cities together – 72 metres between the harbour and the historic heights, ridden by 750,000 passengers a month.
At a glance
- Type
- Public urban elevator
- Period
- 1873; Deco rebuild 1930
- Style
- Art Deco
- Location
- Praca Cairu / Praca Tome de Sousa, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
- Coordinates
- -12.9744, -38.5131
- Engineer
- Antonio de Lacerda (original); 1930 reconstruction municipal
Overview
The Elevador Lacerda connects Salvador’s Cidade Baixa – the port, the Mercado Modelo – with the Cidade Alta’s Pelourinho heights in a 30-second vertical ride. Opened in 1873 as one of the world’s first urban elevators, it received its present Art Deco towers and bridge in 1930: two fluted concrete shafts whose night lighting makes the bay’s most photographed silhouette.
History
Merchant-engineer Antonio de Lacerda built the original hydraulic lift to spare cargo and citizens the cliff paths between Brazil’s first capital’s split levels; it was then the highest passenger elevator on earth. Electrification and the 1930 Deco reconstruction modernized it; the recent restorations keep the four cabins running 24 hours for a fare of pennies – public transport, monument, and viewpoint at once.
Architecture and Design
The 1930 design pairs a cliff-face tower with a freestanding shaft joined by a top bridge, all in streamlined concrete with vertical reeding and a crowning clock. From the upper gallery the view sweeps the All Saints Bay, the Sao Marcelo sea fort, and the lower city’s church towers.
Cultural significance
The Lacerda is the emblem of Salvador and of Bahia itself, framing the sunset in every telenovela and carnival broadcast; it serves the daily commute of the city that was colonial Brazil’s capital and is Afro-Brazil’s cultural heart, beside the UNESCO-listed Pelourinho.
Visiting today
Ride from Praca Cairu by the Mercado Modelo up to Tome de Sousa square and the historic center; sunset rides are the ritual. The fare remains symbolic; queues move fast.
Getting there
The lower station faces the Mercado Modelo and the ferry docks; the upper opens onto the municipal palace square at the edge of the Pelourinho.
Sources and resources
Find it on the map
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