at a glance

at the time, brazil was one of the main destinations for zeppelin travel so the choice to build a hangar in 1931 in rio came naturally.  construction began in 1934 and was completed in 1936 - the hangar was used to both build and store the airships. 

the size of zeppelins made this no easy task - the hangar is 274 meters long, 58 meters high, and 58 meters wide. its impressive size means it can be seen from the center of the santa cruz neighborhood. it is the only zeppelin hangar still in existence as the other two located in germany were destroyed during world war ii.  

there were two airships that made the flights from europe to brazil - the graff zeppelin and the hindenburg. they took off in frankfurt, germany transferred in the state of pernambuco, then on to santa cruz where the ships were held in the hangar. however, there were only nine trips between the two aircrafts in total - after the hindenburg disaster of 1937, the use of zeppelins was disabled.