Timber façade
German style.
Boris Karpuk — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Marinelson Almeida - Traveling through Brazil from Niteroi, Brasil — CC BY 2.0 · Roberto de vasconcel… — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Marcelo Campi from Costa de Oro, Uruguay — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Josue Marinho — CC BY 3.0
In the centre of Blumenau, the city founded by German immigrants in Santa Catarina's Itajaí valley, stands a building that looks as if it had been moved from a German town: the Castelinho da Moellmann, «Moellmann's little castle». It is a copy of the 15th-century town hall of Michelstadt in Germany, built in 1978 from an idea by the businessman Udo Schadrack and designed by the architect Heinrich Herwig, in a style imitating German timber framing with wooden ornament on the façade. It was built as the headquarters of the long-established Moellmann trading company, which closed in 1999; it then housed the tourism office preparing the city's 150th anniversary, and since 2008 it has been a store of the Havan chain. It is one of the city's best-known landmarks and among the most photographed buildings in southern Brazil.
German style.
Blumenau's icon.
In the centre.
Central Blumenau, Santa Catarina
A 1978 copy of Michelstadt's town hall in Germany, built for the Moellmann company and now a store.
