The entertainment industry frequently captures unusual architecture from theme parks that explore bygone eras to remote locales in the hills of Las Vegas that often go unseen.
A two-hour drive from Rio de Janeiro's renowned beaches you can find a 20th century French Normandy building in the state's sierra region: The Palácio Quitandinha.
Located in the Imperial City of Petrópolis – once a summer resort for monarchs who lived in the capital – the hotel-casino opened on February 12, 1944. The international shortage due to World War II did not prevent Joaquim Rolla, a mining entrepreneur, from hiring architects Luis Fossai and Alfredo Baeta Neves to design what would become the largest building of its kind in Latin America.
