Carmen Miranda Museum

Carmen Miranda Museum (Museu Carmen Miranda), located in the Parque Brigadeiro Eduardo Gomes (Flamengo Park), is a museum established in homage to singer and actress Carmen Miranda and open to the public since 1976. The museum was officially opened on the 21st anniversary of her death.

The building was closed to visitors in 2013, but reopened to the public on August 4, 2023 after renovation works. Part of its collection (168 items), including turbans, costumes and various accessories, are on exhibition online on the "We wear Culture" platform, launched by Google Arts & Culture.

History
The Carmen Miranda Museum was officially created in 1956, through a decree signed by Francisco de Lima Negrão, Governor of the Federal District. But its inauguration took place twenty years later, on August 5, 1976, by the Governor of Rio de Janeiro Floriano Peixoto Faria Lima. Installed in Flamengo Park, the circular building was designed by architect Affonso Eduardo Reidy, later adapted by architect Ulisses Burlemaqui.

Originally, the building housed a pavilion for the Morro da Viúva playground, added to the space intended for children, in accordance with the Aterro do Flamengo urbanization plan, drawn up in 1962. The building has a circular plan, 22 meters in diameter, with an internal courtyard that facilitates ventilation and lighting. Its facade is made up of the exposed concrete structure itself, in folds to promote support, with variable balances and access via two tilting doors.

The Carmen Miranda Museum is home to the largest collection of original items that were used by Carmen Miranda. These include her costumes, jewelry and personal items. Additionally, the museum also houses textual and iconographic documentation, providing a comprehensive view of her life and career. Along with film scripts with notes by Carmen and a collection of newspapers and magazines, the collection totals 3560 items, such as her famous bracelets and the skirt she wore at the première of her show on Broadway, in the United States; the clothes she wore for her tribute in the forecourt of the Grauman's Chinese Theatre as well as the clothes she wore on her last performance in 1955.

In 2009, the State Government of Rio de Janeiro announced the construction of the new headquarters of the Museum of Image and Sound (MIS) in Copacabana. The new headquarters will have a space dedicated to the artist, where more than 90 original items from her personal archive will be exhibited.

Collection
The museum's collection began with donations from the singer's family and today houses 3,560 items, including 461 pieces of clothing, including jewelry, 11 complete costumes from shows and films, belts, platform shoes and turbans, in addition to 1,900 sheet music, manuscripts, scripts, 710 photographs and film posters. However, most of the items in the collection are not part of the permanent exhibition.

In 2013, the state government of Rio de Janeiro, through the Secretary of Culture, announced the restoration of a batch of 454 objects belonging to the museum. Among them, the costumes used in the films Copacabana (1947) and Scared Stiff (1953), in shows in England, Cuba and the United States, in addition to the costume that Carmen Miranda used on the TV show The Jimmy Durante Show on the night of August 4, 1955, being her last show recorded.

In February 2009, the museum opened the celebration of Carmen Miranda's birth centennial. As part of the birth centennial year kickoff, the museum got a life-size resin statue of Carmen, created by artist Ulysses Rabelo, who studied her death mask and dental arch for the project. The statue wears the actual dress Carmen donned in That Night in Rio (1941).

For many years, Cecilia Miranda de Carvalho (one of Miranda's sisters) was the manager of the collection of museu.

Permanent exhibition
A large number of her publicity photos are on display blown up to near life-size, along with smaller photos showing the story of her life and career, also on display is the outfit she wore to the 1941 Academy Awards ceremony, as well as jewelry and accessories, including the trademark tall fruit hats. The museum also has a large collection of video documentaries, biographies, the movies she starred in, and a compilation of her songs.

Highlights include the marriage certificate of Carmen Miranda and David Alfred Sebastian (1947), a mention honourable of U.S. Government to Miranda for their services rendered in World War II, a program of the show A night in Rio at Waldorf Astoria New York (1939) and other documents that show the trajectory of Carmen Miranda. There is also a collection of musical scores, composed of 980 items, highlighted for 80 printed scores of the 1930s.