Foz Heritage: discover the assets on the heritage list

Since 2016, Law No. 4.470/2016 has been in force in Foz do Iguaçu, which provides for the protection of the city's Cultural, Historical, Artistic and Environmental Heritage. The body responsible for analyzing requests for listing is the Municipal Council for Cultural Heritage (Cepac).

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The process is usually long, due to points such as the requirements needed to characterize a historical property. The only process that has been approved is that of the Marco das Três Fronteiras, completed in May. The next ones on the council's agenda, for the monthly meeting in June, are the former Colégio Mitre and the statue of the golden one.

The request of H2FOZ, photographer Marcos Labanca took pictures of each of the locations. Check it out!

Landmark of the Three Borders
A marker of national sovereignty, the Marco das Três Fronteiras obelisk, located at the point where the Iguaçu River flows into the Paraná River, was inaugurated in July 1903 by a delegation led by Marshal Cândido Rondon and engineer Dionísio Cerqueira. Along with the Falls, it was one of the first tourist attractions in Foz.

Facade of Mitre College
A characteristic building from the 1950s, the former Bartolomeu Mitre School, now the 5th Military Police School, educated generations of students from Iguaçu. For many years, its façade was hidden by a controversial wall on Avenida Jorge Schimmelpfeng. The current square was opened in the early 2000s.

Statue of the Golden
Created by artist Giovanni Vissoto in 2001 at the request of the company Dourado Caça & Pesca, the statue of the dorado was about to be removed by the government in 2018, under the allegation that it was blocking part of the sidewalk. At the time, local residents signed a petition to request that the monument be maintained.

City Hall
A symbol of the modernization cycle that took over the city between the 1930s and 1940s, the Palácio Cataratas is still the headquarters of the City Hall. The mayor's office is on the top floor of the building. Most of the departments, due to lack of space, are spread out across other buildings in the city.

Old Town Hall
Characteristic of the architecture of the 1970s, the building in Praça Getulio Vargas served as the City Hall until the early 2000s. Currently, after a period of abandonment, it is undergoing renovations to house a cultural station, which will be managed by the municipality.

Cultural Foundation
Built in the 1950s to house the State Court of Justice, it was converted in the early 2000s to house the Municipal Public Library and the Foz do Iguaçu Cultural Foundation. The façade features a mural illustrating the Iguaçu Falls, with references to characters such as Naipi and Tarobá.

Schinke Family House
Located on Rua Tiradentes, the residence was built at the turn of the 1930s and 1940s. An even older property, which remains the property of the family of pioneer Harry Schinke, operated as a Casa de Profilaxis. Swiss scientist Moisés Bertoni, one of the most influential names of his time in the region, passed away there in 1929.

Former Jorge Schimmelpfeng School
Located on Quintino Bocaiúva Street, the building has had multiple uses since the 1940s, when it operated as a school. During the construction of Itaipu, it housed the Children's Club. In the 1990s, it began to be used by the Peace, Love and Charity Spiritist Center (Cepac), founded in 1922.

Gresfi Club (former airport)
Opened in 1941, the building of Foz do Iguaçu's first airport preserves many of its original features, such as the control tower and the waiting area used by passengers. It operated as an air terminal until the 1970s, when it was replaced by the current International Airport.

Barracão Theater
Located next to Praça da Bíblia, Teatro Barracão dates back to the 1990s, when the then Banco do Estado do Paraná (Banestado) built wooden theaters in Foz do Iguaçu, Maringá, Londrina and Cascavel. Since then, it has remained one of the main cultural spaces in the Land of the Falls.

Guarani Forest Zoo
The former Bosque Guarani Zoo, which was closed due to its inability to adapt to modern requirements, preserves an important remnant of the Atlantic Forest in the central area of ​​Foz do Iguaçu. The city government has plans to grant part of the forest to private management.

Monkey Forest
Located in the northern region of Foz, in the Ipê neighborhood, the property with native forest gets its name from the families of monkeys that inhabit the trees. In 2022, after the population's reaction to the felling of part of the trees for a private development, the city government announced that the space will be transformed into a preservation unit.

Full agenda

Other assets in Foz do Iguaçu, such as the group of three houses at the top of Avenida Brasil (in front of Banco do Brasil), the historic building of the Hotel Cassino, the tree tunnel on Avenida Pedro Basso, the Terreiro União Espírita Reino de Oxalá and an indigenous cemetery, will be analyzed by the council in the next monthly meetings until February 2025.

The request to preserve the old portico of Santa Casa Monsenhor Guilherme, in the central area of ​​the city, filed in 2024, lost its reason for being, since the structure, which was exposed in the center of the land after the demolition of the rest of the property, fell after being hit by a gust of wind.