Few modern building types are more closely associated with nineteenth-century Paris than the opera house. Therefore, at first glance, Rio de Janeiro’s eclectic Beaux-Arts Theatro Municipal (1904-1909) might appear to be a miniaturized replica of Charles Garnier’s Second Empire urban landmark—a derivate copy of a European model. However, such thinking overlooks not only the complex hybridity of the Rio building’s architecture, but also its unique agency in turn-of-the-century Latin America. This paper draws from archival research conducted in Rio and recent German media theory to argue that the Theatro Municipal utilized methods of Beaux-Arts design not as a “model” imported from Paris, but rather as a “cultural technique” for the development of a Carioca bourgeoisie. This perspective connects Beaux-Arts design practices to a wide variety of material procedures and social milieus that integrated Brazil’s First Republic into the Belle Epoque’s nascent global economy. By using the theater as its central case study, this paper critiques the concept of “model” in the global history of architecture. Moreover, it establishes “cultural technique” as a new theoretical framework for situating Beaux-Arts architecture at the intersection of a wide variety of actors responsible for historical change.