Floriano Peixoto Square and 1st Battalion of the Military Police of Minas Gerais
(Former Belo Horizonte Square)
The square is part of the project of the new capital, being located in the limit of the perimeter of the Contorno avenue, in Saint Ephigenia neighborhood, patron saint of the military. Its original name was Praça Belo Horizonte, which became Praça Marechal Floriano Peixoto on December 20, 1929, as a tribute to the second president of the Federative Republic of Brazil.
The construction of the barracks began on March 7, 1897, still in the Vila do Curral Del Rey, designed by Edgard Nascentes Coelho, draftsman of the architecture section of the construction commission and under the responsibility of the Count of Santa Marinha. It was inaugurated on May 12, 1899.
The urban routes that delimit the perimeter of historical heritage of the barracks building and the square are the Contorno avenue, and the Manaus and Álvares Maciel streets.
The block where the building of the barracks is located is flat and of greater altitude. The building is shaped like an “O,” with a large central courtyard uncovered. A building that imposes itself externally for its architectural beauty in eclectic style and for its aspect of a military fortress. Internally, it is characterized by the simplicity of the barracks.
It has a front facade of 112.5 meters long and 1.10 meters wide, composed of a central body, flanked by two turrets and having two more turrets at the ends. These five bodies and the back façade are on two pavements. All these constructions are united by pavilions of a single pavement and walls 70 centimeters thick.
Along the front facade and the side facades, there are numerous skylights which allowed soldiers to fire machine guns. The entrance of pedestrians is made in the axis of the central body and the one of vehicles in its right side, in the frontal facade. On the rear façade there is an exit of vehicles located on the central axis. The roof of the building is in French ceramic tile. The patio floor is in asphalt. The floors of corridors, stairs, rooms and other dependencies are in marble, burnt cement, wooden blocks and ceramics.
Domingos Vieira street separates the barracks from the square. The latter, has a rectangular plan, divided into three areas differentiated by landscaping uses and treatments.
The highest part, next to the barracks, is comprised of two large sloping lawns, separated by an alley and delimited by trees, palm trees and small shrubs.
Separating this area from the lower part, there is a flat internal road, covered with recycled tire floor, flanked by wooden benches. In this area are children's toys, exercise equipment and drinking water.
The third part of the square (the largest) has many spaces interconnected by stone slab paths, hiking trails and many richly composed gardens. In this lower part, next to Contorno avenue, elements like changing rooms, arbor and bleachers have been constructed. In the central part of this third area is a metal sculpture.
The square was intervened in 1996, based on a partnership between the municipality and Petrobras, and from 2010, when it was adopted by Unimed, it underwent interventions due to the environmental licensing conditions for the construction of a hospital in its surroundings.
The architectural, landscape and historical ensemble of the barracks and the square was registered by Iepha-MG in 1984 and by the Municipal Council of the Cultural and Historical Heritage of Belo Horizonte ten years later, in 1994.
