CAIXA

CAIXA fosters culture and all artistic displays, and plays a fundamental role in the pieces of work that are now accessible to the public. With the objective of recovering culture and the true icons of the country's cultural heritage, CAIXA's Cultural Complex has come to life and today it portrays the political, economic, artistic and cultural history of our country.

CAIXA's Cultural Complex is comprised of: theaters, located in Brasília, Curitiba and Rio de Janeiro; museums, in Salvador, Curitiba and Sao Paulo; and galleries, in Sao Paulo, Brasília, Curitiba, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador. In these spaces, the company promotes, supports and disseminates the most diverse artistic-cultural displays.

Cultural Memory

On January 12, 1861, Dom Pedro II signed decree 2723 creating CAIXA Econômica and Monte de Socorro da Corte (Penhor). The two-page, handwritten document signed by the Emperor and Minister Ângelo Muniz da Silva Ferraz defined the basic rules for the new Institution's operations, and it was also its first regulation.

To begin its activities, CAIXA Econômica and Monte de Socorro da Corte needed thirty contos de reis (the Brazilian currency by that time) as initial capital (or ballast), as per Decree 2723, item 2. After obtaining that amount, the Company opened its doors on November 4, 1861, in the Old Jail (Tiradentes Palace) building, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, under the leadership of Viscount of Albuquerque.

The Monte de Socorro (inspired on the European Monte Pios or Montes de Piedade) represented a means of salvation for the poorest populations of Rio de Janeiro who did not have access to banking facilities, especially to contract loans. The loans were obtained with jewels and objects as collateral, and at interest rates and terms they could afford.

The savings account also represented an important victory, because even the slaves could save their economies to buy a Freedom Letter.

On April 18, 1874, D. Pedro II enacted the Decree 5594 authorizing the installation of Caixas Econômicas e Montes de Socorro in the Empire's Provinces. The first Provincial Caixa was in Sao Paulo, established on January 25, 1875.

Ever since early 1980s, with the creation of the Brasília Cultural Complex, CAIXA has been developing a job of memory preservation, recovering and disseminating its historic collection. That's more than twenty-five years of detailed and dedicated work, where these stories are told and experienced in CAIXA museum with its large number of works and documents that portray the history of Brazil.

The collection has more than one thousand works, including paintings, engravings, drawings, tapestries, sculptures and panels; and nearly six thousand old pieces related to the trajectory of the Empire and the country itself part of which exhibited in the museums in Curitiba, Salvador and Sao Paulo.

In these spaces, for example, the public can appreciate the reports of slaves who deposited their resources in CAIXA Econômica and Monte Socorro with the objective of buying their Freedom Letter; there are also several pieces related to gold extraction and the Lotteries, historical documents and furniture of those times, among other items.

With Brasília as the starting point, other Cultural Complex sites were created in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Curitiba. At present, the museums that are open for public visitation include the Conjunto Cultural in Sao Paulo, on the Praça da Sé, # 111, 4th Floor; in Curitiba, at Rua José Loureiro, 195, 6th Floor, Downtown; and in Salvador, there is a mini museum called the Memory Room, at Rua Carlos Gomes, # 57, Downtown. There is a project underway to establish Museums in other cities.

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