Mariana Costa

I studied architecture before I started guiding, so the Baixa grid still reads to me as an engineering answer to a disaster rather than just a pretty downtown. On camera I explain how the whole district was planned and rebuilt after the 1755 earthquake using an early form of prefabrication, then move to Rossio Square to show how its layers of history sit right on the surface. I keep the pace measured, since the grid's logic only really shows once you slow down enough to notice the repetition. Eight years in, that story still holds my attention every time I tell it.