The architecture of the Museum of Image and Sound looks to Copacabana Beach for inspiration: its coastline, its wraparound wall, its hills, and its distinctive seaside promenade designed by Roberto Burle Marx, which captures the essence of the place: the public in motion, whether walking or by bicycle or automobile. The building is conceived as an extension of the promenade, as if the road were stretched vertically to form the museum. The resulting ‘vertical boulevard’ gestures toward inclusivity, gently traversing indoor and outdoor spaces to create exhibition galleries, workshops, and areas for leisure and entertainment. The building thus takes from Burle Marx’s contribution to the place, but radically redirects the public side upward to form the new museum’s thickened facade. It is also thought of as an instrument for observing the city in a new way: the panorama that spreads before it – until now overexposed to tourists patronizing the hotels and restaurants in the area, but unseen by the city’s real inhabitants – is perhaps its most characteristic feature. By means of framing strategies, the museum acts like a mask that curates this view for the visitor moving through the gallery sequence.