皇家葡萄牙语阅览室，里约热内卢，巴西 Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (© Antonio Salaverry/Shutterstock)

皇家葡萄牙语阅览室，里约热内卢，巴西 Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (© Antonio Salaverry/Shutterstock)

书香里的极致华美 Bookishly extravagant

里约热内卢皇家葡萄牙语阅览室，巴西

今天，我们走进巴西里约热内卢的皇家葡萄牙语阅览室。在这里，翻开一本书这一朴素举动，被赋予了宏伟的建筑抱负。巴西独立仅15年后，43名葡萄牙移民于1837年创办了这家机构；约半个世纪后，机构最终迁入眼前这座以华丽的新曼努埃尔式建成的建筑。书架环绕宽阔的阅览大厅，高逾70英尺；大厅上方覆盖着一扇巨型彩绘玻璃天窗，让自然光也成为设计的一部分。

这座建筑成了连接两个国家的桥梁：其外立面在里斯本雕刻完成，横越大西洋运抵里约热内卢，再于当地组装。最终成果令人惊叹，2014年，它入选世界最美的20座图书馆。这里于1900年向公众开放，如今收藏着数十万册书籍，是葡萄牙境外规模最大的葡萄牙文学藏书地。然而，在这一切繁复华美与宏伟气象之下，最初的理念依旧简单而美好：让人们有书可读。

Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Today we're inside the Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where the humble act of opening a book took on grand architectural ambitions. Founded in 1837 by 43 Portuguese immigrants, just 15 years after Brazil's independence, the institution eventually moved into the building seen here, completed half a century later in a lavish Neo-Manueline style. Shelves soar over 70 feet around a vast reading room, crowned by a monumental stained-glass skylight that makes daylight part of the design.

The building became a bridge between two countries: its façade was carved in Lisbon, shipped across the Atlantic, and assembled in Rio. So striking was the result that it was ranked among the 20 most beautiful libraries in the world in 2014. Opened to the public in 1900, it now preserves hundreds of thousands of volumes, making it the largest collection of Portuguese literature outside Portugal. Yet beneath all that ornate grandeur, the original idea remains wonderfully simple: give people access to books.