Centro Luiz Gonzaga de Tradições Nordestinas

This guide to the Centro Luiz Gonzaga de Tradicoes Nordestinas in Rio de Janeiro tells the story of the oval hall's original roof: a cable-stayed steel-and-fabric canopy the architect Sergio Bernardes stretched over the space in the late 1950s, cooled by water pumped to its high points and channeled back down. It follows the 1990 fire, started in a samba school's storage shed, that snapped its cables one by one, and the storm the next spring that finished the job. Stand at the center of the open floor to get a sense of just how wide a single unsupported roof once had to span.