Christ the Redeemer Trivia | 40 facts about the impressive statue

One of the most famous, and impressive statues in the world is located in Brazil. This is Christ the Redeemer, and it attracts many tourists annually.

We are about to find out more about the statue os the Christ the Redeemer, that has gaines so much polularity across the world all over these years.

1. Christ the Redeemer is an Art Deco statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
2. It was created by French sculptor Paul Landowski and built by Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, in collaboration with French engineer Albert Caquot.
3. So, the statue wasn’t built in Brasil. It was built in France.
4. It was first made in clay pieces.
5. These were then shipped to Brazil to be remade with reinforced concrete by Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa and French engineer Albert Caquot.
6. Romanian sculptor Gheorghe Leonida fashioned the face.
7. It was constructed between 1922 and 1931.
8. The statue is 30 metres (98 ft) high, excluding its 8-metre (26 ft) pedestal
9. . The arms stretch 28 metres (92 ft) wide.
10. The statue weighs 635 metric tons (625 long, 700 short tons).
11. It is located at the peak of the 700-metre (2,300 ft) Corcovado mountain in the Tijuca Forest National Park overlooking the city of Rio de Janeiro.
12. It is a symbol of Christianity across the world, and it has also become a cultural icon of both Rio de Janeiro and Brazil.
13. It is listed as one of the New7Wonders of the World.
14. It is made of reinforced concrete and soapstone.
15. Christ the Redeemer has an outer shell of 6 million soapstone tiles.
16. It’s believed that the workers who made these tiles occasionally wrote notes on the back, meaning this iconic landmark is full of hidden messages.
17. 2. Due to the statue’s mountaintop position, it’s prone to lightning strikes.
18. It gets hit around three to six times a year.
19. Prior to the FIFA World Cup in 2014, lightning struck and broke one of the statue’s thumbs.
20. The original design was intended for Christ to be holding a globe in one hand and a cross in the other, rather than two open arms.
21. It came at a cost of $250,000 US.
22. 7. It’s one of the largest statues of Jesus.
23. It’s the tallest art deco statue in the world.
24. 8. Housing prices in Rio de Janeiro have increased simply if the property has a view of Christ the Redeemer. A
25. partments with even a slight view of the statue are higher than those with the same location and size but no view.
26. The light-coloured stone used to build the statue was taken from a quarry near the city of Ouro Preto.
27. However, this stone is in short supply and restoration works are having to be done using different types.
28. As a result, stone in a darker shade is slowly replacing the original, meaning Christ the Redeemer is gradually getting darker.
29. Each year, Christ the Redeemer is visited by nearly 2 million people.
30. The record number of visitors to the statue in a single day was a huge 14,000 during Easter of 2011.
31. The statue was built following the creation of the Brazilian republic in 1889, which separated church and state, and fear began to grow amongst Catholics that the nation was headed toward a precipice.
32. Afraid that his monument would end up a failure, Da Silva Costa found inspiration in a fountain along Paris’s Champs Elysees.
33. Tiles lining the fountain accentuated its curves in just the way Da Silva Costa hoped to see in his design. This is how he ende up creating the statue using stone tiles.
34. Wind and rain have worn away at the statue’s stone tiles.
35. Duting the Covid-19 pandemic the Christ the Redeemer was illuminated with the names of victims lost to COVID-19.
36. This happened during an online ceremony called “For Every Life” that paid tribute to the 60,000 victims lost in Brazil and 500,000 lost worldwide.
37. To celebrate the monument’s 75th anniversary in 2006, authorities built a small chapel at its base.
38. For years, visitors to Christ the Redeemer had to scale around 200 steps to get from the train station to the statue.
39. Rio de Janeiro decided to install a series of escalators and elevators in 2003 to make the route easier.
40. A couple of acrobatic graffiti artists scaled the statue while it was being renovated and wrote all over the head, arms, and chest. Later they turned themselves in.