A few days before I arrived in Rio, Zoë Melo, who since we met in New York in 2009 became a good friend and one of my project’s “godmothers”, suggested I should meet the guys from Fibra Design Sustentável. I did, if only had a chance to talk with one of them, Bruno Temer. I immediately knew they were something else; we had lunch on one of the very last days of my 1-month research trip – by then I had met and interviewed a ton of people and was starting to get an idea of what I was interested in finding out more about Brazilian product and furniture design, but nothing prepared me for the frankness, fairness and ambition both Bruno and his other partners have shared with me over transatlantic email and skype conversations.

When the organisers of Design Indaba asked me for a Brazilian designer suggestion for the 2011 edition of the event, they were on the top of my mind. And I was very happy they both left a great impression and had a blast. Writing “A Material World”, their profile for Design Indaba, now out in print and online, was also just as fun.

I only saw the sun for three hours during the six days I spent in Rio de Janeiro last August. My one and only stroll down Copacabana beach took place under a rain storm, while three-meter waves pounded the shore. I was lucky to even get a view of the city (above) from the top of the Corcovado. The last week of my one-month research trip in Brazil may have been anything but sun-kissed, but I didn’t need to get a tan to think Rio de Janeiro is today in a great place to become South America’s main design destination.

I say this three days before the International Olympic Committee decides the host city for the 2016 Olympics; running against Madrid, Chicago and Tokyo, Rio – and Brazil – is aiming high with its Olympic bid, as Alexei Barrionuevo tells in his recent New York Times article. What stroke me most about this piece was the following paragraph:

Rio is seeking to become the next Barcelona, Spain, a city that used the 1992 Olympic Games to improve its infrastructure and transform itself into a more popular destination for tourism and international events. Officials here say a Rio Olympics could help broaden the Games’ appeal to a wider and more youthful South American audience, while stamping Rio and Brazil with a seal of international approval.

This comparison is particularly fortunate: 1992 was Spain’s “golden year”, when Barcelona hosted the Olympics, Seville the World’s Fair and Madrid was European Capital of Culture. By then Spain was no longer the backward, southern European nation of before. Brazil doesn’t have to wait for 2016 to prove how far it has come: every day new statistics and news express the country’s social and economic progress, made possible by a burgeoning economy and political stability. Those changes are also expressed in its industry, design and – in what is the focus of my thesis research – its design community.

I’m not the first to say Brazil is a creative powerhouse of the 21st century, but I’d like today to make the case for Rio de Janeiro to be its new center. After losing its importance in the 1960s, as Brasília became the country’s administrative capital and São Paulo its industrial, financial and cultural heart, Rio went through some rough times. The derelict state of its downtown is an evidence of how it has been emptied of power, money and stamina.

There are however signs of a slow rebound – and I’m not talking about Olympic bid billboards. Expanding areas of downtown are now home to galleries, bars and restaurants. An ambitious new recovery plan has been announced for the city’s old harbor, which be the new address of Instituto Europeo di Design‘s Rio branch (after it was denied to be housed in the legendary Urca Casino – thanks Filipe Chagas for pointing that out).

These are only a few hints on how Rio de Janeiro can be South America’s answer to Europe’s Barcelona: a cosmopolitan and tolerant city of incomparable natural beauty, known for its joie de vivre. Somewhere to call home that is large enough to feel urban, but not incommensurable and burdensome. These may not be the only requirements for the “creative class” to come here from all over the world, as it did in the past – after all, Rio (and Brazil) still has many problems to solve, crime being its most critical.

It also has a history in design: ESDI, South America’s first design school, opened in 1963; some of the country’s most interesting designers and studios are also based here. But as I often heard during my rainy week, São Paulo is where the real money is, so that’s where most people have been going – making it the world’s third largest megalopolis. Rio’s other handicap is the virtual absence of local industries; most are based around São Paulo or in the southern states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina. But in our post-industrial world of digital connections and low-cost airlines, does proximity to industry matter most than closeness to other designers and creative professionals?

If Justin McGuirk’s London Design Festival review in The Guardian is anything to go by, no. Much like London, Barcelona, even Berlin, Lisbon or Cape Town (all differences considered), Rio doesn’t need industry to become a – and not necessarily Brazilian – “design hothouse”, an “international hub of ideas and dissemination”, a design capital for Brazil or for the whole of South America. It just needs to get its act together, honor its past, improve the living and safety conditions of its inhabitants and become an exciting city to live in – as it once was. The time has come for Rio de Janeiro to aim higher.

In his latest and highly critical Folha de São Paulo op-ed piece, Kennedy Alencar says Rio not only deserves the Olympics, but also a generous and intelligent elite that can lead a discussion about the city’s future. Rio’s designers should also be part of this discussion. The local design community is already beginning to do just that, as this video for last year’s Brazil Design Weekand this manifesto show. And it should be taken seriously. In the next few weeks, I’ll be posting profiles of people I’ve met there, who have been contributing to this creative reawakening.

Brazil is currently living its most fascinating moment in history, which may have its highpoint in seven years’ time. Rio should be the host city to that and to many other celebrations.

After 31 days, seven cities and over 25 interviews and many, many hours of observations, conversations and reflections on Brazilian design, I left Rio at dusk on August 26th.

I will keep updating alvorada.org from Lisbon and – as of September 14th – from New York, with more mini-profiles, stories and other findings.

I intend on returning to São Paulo for a week (October 19th to 25th) for some more interviews – if I can work out the necessary funding.

When asked about why he writes, Portuguese writer Antonio Lobo Antunes once answered: “Ask an apple tree why it bears apples”. During our conversation at his studio/showroom in Humaitá, Sérgio Rodrigues used this very quote to describe his own work, an analogy he uses to answer the people who question him about “not following trends” or designing today things that seem to have been designed 40 years ago.

At 85 years of age, Rodrigues is not particularly concerned with critics, not even with the esprit du temps. His designs – over 1,500 of them – are reflections of how he draws and thinks, processes that have remained largely untouched over his long career. He is one of Brazil’s pioneers in furniture design and remains an inspiration for designers all over the country – but particularly abroad, as his work has gained increased recognition and value over the last years.

Rodrigues is a pleasure to talk to, and our hour and a half was surely not enough to learn more about his achievements, friendships, failures and curious stories (like Kim Novak’s goat standing on a Poltrona Mole in her house in California) he talks about with great wit and generousity.

We’ll be meeting again on September 15th, when Sérgio will come to New York for the launch of his collection of lamps and “Chifruda” chair at Espasso.