Pinacoteca

Founded in 1905, the Pinacoteca is the oldest art museum in Brazil, and it holds the reference collection of Brazilian art from the nineteenth century onward - Almeida Junior, Pedro Americo, Tarsila do Amaral, Anita Malfatti, Portinari, Volpi. The building was a school of arts and crafts from 1900 and was never finished as designed; Paulo Mendes da Rocha's renovation in the 1990s left the raw brick exposed, roofed the courtyards in glass and cut steel walkways across them, and the result is regularly cited as one of the best museum conversions in the country. Across the road, the Memorial da Resistencia occupies the former political police headquarters where prisoners were held and tortured under the dictatorship, and preserves the cells.

What you actually see

• The reference Brazilian collection - from nineteenth-century academic work to modernism.
• Exposed brick and glass roofs - Mendes da Rocha's stripped-back conversion.
• Steel walkways across courtyards - cut through the old school building.
• The Memorial da Resistencia - the preserved political police cells opposite.

When to go

All year, closed Tuesdays. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The Luz district around the museum has significant street drug problems and needs care, particularly after dark - arrive by metro and stay on the main approaches. Labelling is largely Portuguese. The Memorial is a difficult visit by design.

Nearby

The Jardim da Luz faces the entrance; the Sala Sao Paulo concert hall is alongside.