The Copan is Oscar Niemeyer at full sinuous swing — a 38-storey, 140-metre-long building shaped like a long S-curve, with brise-soleil concrete fins along the entire facade. It sits in the middle of the centro and is one of the city's most recognisable buildings. Whoever lives in it lives in one of the largest residential buildings in Latin America: more than a thousand apartments, half of them studios, sold to everyone from artists and architects to retirees and immigrant families.
The ground floor has a long curved arcade of shops, cafes, and bars — Bar da Dona Onça is the best-known restaurant. Tours of the roof terrace can be booked through the building's residents' association; the view down the curve and out across the centro is worth the small effort.