Museu do Café
Museum of Brazilian coffee in the 1922 Coffee Exchange, with its domed stained glass and trading floor.
The Museu do Café occupies the Bolsa Oficial de Café, the palace where coffee prices for Brazil's largest export were once fixed. It was inaugurated on 7 September 1922, the centenary of independence, in the historic centre of Santos a short distance from the quays through which the crop was shipped. The building is listed by both the state heritage body and, since 2009, by IPHAN. The museum itself opened in 1998, after the palace had been restored, and is run by the São Paulo state culture department.
The centrepiece is the Sala do Pregão, the trading room, lined in marble and jacaranda and lit by a domed stained-glass ceiling showing Benedito Calixto's A Visão de Anhanguera; three further Calixto canvases depict the founding of Santos and the town in 1822 and 1922. The last auction was held here in the 1950s. Permanent displays trace coffee growing, processing and trade and their part in the economy and in slavery, while a café on the ground floor serves beans from producing regions and the museum keeps a programme of temporary exhibitions.
Highlights
- Domed stained-glass ceiling by Benedito Calixto over the trading room
- Sala do Pregão, the former coffee auction floor in marble and jacaranda
- Displays on coffee growing, processing and the export trade
- Palace of 1922, listed by IPHAN in 2009
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