Old Chamber House and Jail

The Casa de Câmara e Cadeia represented the municipal power in the village of Our Lady of Desterro. Designed by architect Tomás Francisco da Costa from Faial, it was built with stone walls mortared with whale oil, sand and lime, and its construction lasted exactly nine years and ten months, from 1771 to 1780. As with all the Chamber Houses in Colonial Brazil, according to Portuguese tradition, on its ground floor, lawbreakers, slaves, rebels and madmen were locked up and, on the upper floor, the Palace of the Chamber and the Senate.

Among the innumerable orders and laws, it was from here that the municipal postures that prohibited, not only the coronation parties of kings, but also the gatherings of slaves and freedmen, came from. But what was initially just a townhouse with characteristics of Portuguese-Brazilian colonial architecture, was transformed and, after successive renovations, in 1896, it gained eclectic decoration, with baroque elements. Internally, it was also completely de-characterized and, today, it no longer houses any of the original furniture.

In 1930, with the opening of the State Penitentiary in the agronomic, the chain has been deactivated. From 1984 onwards, it was protected by municipal tipping, having been occupied, until 2005, by the Municipal Legislative Power. With the move of the City Council to a larger property on Rua Anita Garibaldi, the building of the Antiga Casa de Câmara e Cadeia began to house some temporary events, in which it was transformed, for example, into “Casa do Carnaval” and “Casa do Carnaval”. Santa Claus".

The building currently houses the Florianopolis Museum, after being fully restored in 2018 by the Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional (Iphan), in agreement with the Florianopolis City Hall.

Address: Rua dos Ilhéus, 242 - Next to Praça XV - Centro.