Escadaria Selarón

The Escadaria Selarón is a public staircase between the neighbourhoods of Lapa and Santa Teresa, turned over more than two decades into a mosaic of tiles, ceramics and mirror fragments. Locals also call it the Escadaria da Lapa, the Lapa Steps. It runs between Rua Joaquim Silva and Rua Manuel Carneiro, also known as Rua Pinto Martins, and its lower end reaches the foot of the Arcos da Lapa, the old aqueduct.

The work belongs to one man. Jorge Selarón, a painter and sculptor born in Chile in 1947, worked in more than 50 countries before settling in Rio de Janeiro in 1983, in a house beside the steps. In 1990 he began renovating the steps in front of his home, paying for materials partly by selling his paintings. He called the staircase his tribute to the Brazilian people, described it as never complete and said the dream would only end on the day he died. He was found dead on the steps on 10 January 2013, the year usually given as the end of the work.

There are 215 steps over about 125 metres, decorated with more than 2,000 tiles from more than 60 countries. The early tiles were salvaged from building sites and piles of urban waste; later most were donated by visitors from around the world. The dominant colours are blue, green and yellow, the colours of the Brazilian flag. About 300 tiles are hand-painted with the figure of a pregnant African woman, a subject Selarón returned to constantly; he claimed to have sold more than 25,000 portraits since 1977, most of them of her.

The steps have travelled far beyond Rio. They appear in Snoop Dogg's music video for Beautiful, U2 filmed there, and they featured in the city's 2009 bid video for the 2016 Olympics and in several editions of The Amazing Race. They have also appeared in campaigns for brands and magazines including National Geographic Channel and Time.

The staircase is free and open to the street, and part of the pleasure is looking closely at individual tiles as you climb. It is a flight of steps throughout, so it is not suitable for wheelchairs or pushchairs.

The lower end of the steps sits by the Arcos da Lapa, which the Santa Teresa tram crosses on its way up the hill. That makes it easy to combine the steps with a tram ride or a walk up into Santa Teresa, where Bar do Mineiro and Aprazível are among the neighbourhood's best-known places to eat.