Brasilia

Overview

For centuries, civilization did not portrude into Brazil far from the coastline. The vast majority of the population was there, trade was there, cities were there. It has always been a dream of the Brazilian government to move the capital inland - thereby gaining more control of the vast interior of the country. This dream did not become reality until the 1950's, when Brazilian president Kubitchek decided Brazil needed a monumental capital if it was ever to become a world power. As America had Washington DC, Australia had Canberra and Russia had once had St. Petersburg, so too would Brazil have its Brasilia. The dream-city The modernist architecture is stunning. No doubt about it. Many of the buildings set along the central axis are surrreal in their appearance. They are meant to impress. the houses along the wings of the airplane shaped city all look out onto parks, while wide boulevards lead into the center. It was a laboritory for modernist achitects and urban planners, and today the city is a Mecca for anyone interested in architecture. The architectural dream of the 1950's turned out to be a nightmare for the people that had to populate the city: the civil servants. The government may have moved, all the excitement was left in Rio de Janeiro, the old capital. If you have more than a day to spend in Brasilia, you will notice that the city center is devoid of night- and daylife: it is surprisingly boring. It is as if...more

History

The basic structure of Brasilia was completed in just four years, from 1956 to 1960, under the leadership of President Juscelino Kubitschek, with the slogan "fifty years of progress in five", and the city is in a sense a memorial to him. The city plan is designed in the shape of a giant bird or airplane, with various separated zones assigned for specific functions such as housing, commerce, hospitals and banking. Running down the center of the "airplane's" fuselage is the thoroughfare called the Eixo Monumental ("Monumental Axis") and at one end lie the government buildings. The arched "wings" are residential zones, with several rows of medium-rise apartment blocks with small commercial districts. The intersection is the commercial and cultural hub, with stores, hotels, and the cathedral. A huge artificial lake serves the city as both a leisure area and to diminish the effects of low humidity in drier months (see Climate below). After less than 50 years from its creation, Brasilia is still developing a culture of its own. The city has often been criticized as a failed utopia where rationalized modernist planning has buried the human element. Yet Brazilians are quite proud of their capital, embodying a vision of a future when Brazil is no longer considered merely a "developing" country. The original planned area (called Plano Piloto) is home to about 300,000 inhabitants, most of the city's upper classes. The so-called satellite cities (15 to 40 kilometres away, some in the neighbouring State of Goiás) concentrate the remainder of the almost two million inhabitants of this metropolis.