Brasilia Upon Landing
published in Studio©, no 4, May 2013, Milan, pp.126-133
“I feel as if I
stepped on the surface of another planet”.
Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, upon visiting the city of
Brasilia in 1961.
A pure product of the mind, Brasilia was built on the
premise that an independent Brazil needed a new capital, a political center
freed from the colonial past and iconography, that would be situated at the
center of its empty and large territory. Its president Kubitschek was keen to
prove the world the strength, the fierceness and the self-sufficiency of his
young nation. The city’s construction is in itself an incredible achievement, a
massive effort that required and mobilized the entire economic, social and
natural resources of the country. This historical period was rich and full of
promises.
Today, despite its glorification by Unesco’s titles, the city has aged in a curious way. Its
inhabitants are proud of it, describing it as a greener, safer place to live.
Yet the newcomer is puzzled by the monotonous repetition of some urban forms,
the lack of public and civic center, and the relatively large distances
separating the various segregated zones of the city. Is Brasilia really the
ultimate modern model city?
I arrived and settled in Brasilia a few months ago. Despite
being completely new to Brazil, and to South America, I came with some
preconceived ideas about the capital city. Indeed, at some point during my architectural
education, Brasilia was pointed out as the model modernist city, as an
exemplary experiment in modern architecture. Sleek black and white pictures by
Marcel Gautherot were used to showcase the unique fluidity of Niemeyer’s
designs. These images did not really prepare me for the experience of living in
the capital.
Figure 1: Construction of the ministerial buildings, September 1959, Public Archives of the Federal District. Unknown photographer.
History
Prior to our arrival, I familiarized myself with the unique
history of this city. In 1956, the newly-indicted president Juscelino
Kubitschek laid the ground for a new capital. The selection of the location, in
the middle of Goias State, was intended to open up the vast interior of Brazil,
whose urbanization had been mostly coastal.
An international competition was held, and a team formed by the
urban planner Lucio Costa, the architect Oscar Niemeyer, and the landscape
architect Roberto Burle Marx, was selected. The winning entry presented a modernist
city plan, as a prototype for a new modern way of living, the plano piloto. Shaped in the form of an
aircraft, its fuselage contained the monumental spaces for public buildings and
civic monuments, while the plane’s wings were primarily reserved for housing.
Figure 2: Lucio Costa, Winning entry for the Pilot-Plan Competition. Source: Digital photo of the original plan, displayed at the O Espaço Lúcio Costa in Brasília. Photo by Uri Rosenheck. Consulted on March 01, 2013.
Materials as well as workers were flown in from other parts
of the country, in the middle of the empty tropical Brazilian savannah, the cerado, and the work took an
unprecedented pace. Within less than four years of its groundbreaking ceremony,
the capital was constructed and inaugurated. An enormous success for an
emerging nation like Brazil, the capital, with Niemeyer’s curvilinear
monuments, became an international reference of the modernist movement.
The choice of a modernist style was a deliberate attempt to
offer the Brazilian nation an object of pride and nationalism, as well as a
mean to achieve modernization. James Holston, in what is probably the most
cited study of the city, talks about Brasilia as “the most complete example
ever constructed to the architectural and planning tenets put forward by the
manifesto of the CIAM () (Holston, 1989, p.31)
.
The
plano piloto was
initially envisioned by Costa for half a million people. Fifty years after its
inauguration, the city has expanded beyond the original master plan, providing
a home for more than two and half million inhabitants, and boasting its role as
an economically affluent city
.
Landing
Jetlagged and with two exhausted kids in tow, we exited
Kubitschek Airport as quickly as possible. Despite the shortness of the
experience, I felt a kind of time warp enveloping us, probably caused by the out-datedness
emanating from the walls of the building. I smiled as we drove away, reflecting
about the fact that we were going from one airplane to another; from the aircraft
that transported us miles away from our previous home in Beijing, China, to an
modernist one laid out in the middle of the dry Brazilian landscape.
We arrived at night to our new neighborhood, the
quadra 106 Sul, nested in the south wing of the Brasiliana aircraft. Our
bloco, an apartment building with its
blank façade of perforated concrete blocks overlooking our parking lot, made me
re-doubt the modern movement and its blatant austerity. Sufficiently large for
our family, our unit proved more confortable than anticipated, efficiently
laid-out, in a typical modernist fashion, separating the service areas from
other uses, pushing them against the blank façade. With time, this façade of
perforated blocks would leave me frustrated by the lack of view. From the main
rooms on the opposite side, the panorama also proved to be somewhat uninspiring,
even dreary at night, with dusty grounds separating our building from the back
of the adjacent commercial street. Welcome to Brasilia, the Moon’s Backside
.
Fixed in time
Despite, or maybe because of the five decades elapsed since the
city’s creation, I feel my surroundings are easily datable, almost set in time.
It is not just our neighborhood. Most parts of the city are using the modernist
language circa 1960: I notice the prevalence of pilotis raising the buildings off the ground, the long strips of
modular windows, the use of exposed concrete, the tiling of façades, the repetition
of volumes, the open spaces intently left between them, the plasticity and
heroic gestures of the forms of most public buildings. These choices are
following the famous modernist precepts emanating from Le Corbusier’s Athens Charter. Following these guidelines,
the city is also organized into well-segregated functions; housing, work,
recreation and circulation.
Figure 3: A view of a housing building in Asa Sul, showing all the elements of a modernist approach: strip windows, repetition, pilotis. Photo © Isabelle Cyr
In 1987, the city was listed as a U
nesco World Heritage site. It is the only modern city to
behold such status. Despite this achievement, preservationists are still debating
the parameters for its preservation
, arguing
that the
pilot plan itself is the
object of preservation, rather than its buildings and monuments, thus making
Brasilia the largest U
nesco listed
site. Consequently this approach results in very few buildings listed, while
many others show signs of aging and decay.
Figure 4: A view of a housing building in Asa Sul; the connection to the ground floor is broken despite the pilotis. Photo © Fiona Murphy
My Super Neighborhood
My initial exploration was limited to our housing area. It
took me a few days to understand the order underlying the city’s housing zones.
Our neighborhood is linked to its neighboring
quadra on one side by a short commercial street and on the other by
the
interquadra, a space reserved for
some public amenities – in our case, a school, an outdoor playground and a
theatre currently under renovation.
Each
group of four
quadras was planned as
an autonomous neighborhood. In Asa Sul, only a few
superquadras were completed, leaving the
interquadra spaces to resemble a no-man’s-land.
Figure 5: A view of a neighborhood commercial street where traffic and parking layout makes for a difficult pedestrian experience. Photo © Fiona Murphy
Figure 6: A view of a mixed-used building in Asa Norte. This wing, built later than Asa Sul, attempted to correct some of the problems of Asa Sul, namely the segregation of use and the provision of a different variety of housing types. Photo © Isabelle Cyr
Leaving the hood
Because the city segregates the use by function (schooling,
residence, commerce, etc.), it was not long before I needed to leave my quadra. Getting out of our housing
sector requires driving skills first and foremost. Our apartment building stands
along one of these typical “intersection” between the housing zone and the highways,
connectors to other parts of the city. Our commercial street plunges under a
set of three overpasses, leading the driver to the even-numbered grouping of superquadras, similar to ours. The 14
lanes above, reached by the means of cloverleaf connectors, are connecting and
cutting through the entire city from North to South. This axis reaches to the physical heart of
the capital, occupied by the rodovaria,
the bus station. Also renamed the Axis of Death by those trying to cross it, it
is a break in the urban fabric, preventing visual and physical connection
between the housing blocs.
Order and
Monumentality
In search of an alternative for my kids to the obsolete and dangerous
playground of our quadra, I decided
to go visit the National Museum, aka the igloo. This white concrete dome,
adorned by a spiraling ramp, sits in the middle of the esplanade of the
Monumental Axis. Completed in 2006, it is the last built project of Niemeyer.
What initially was meant to entertain became a driving expedition.
Less than 3 kilometers separated our flat from the Museum, yet the intricate
highway and overpass system almost had the upper hand on me. Despite reaching
the front of the museum mid-way into the exercise, it took me 45 minutes,
several loops and probably more than 10 kilometers to finally reach my
destination and park the car. The numerous interchanges around the rodovaria, the poor indications, or the
specific logic of these roads were responsible, I felt.
A few days later, I embarked on tour of the city’s
monuments, a pilgrimage to become a devout
candango,
in a hope to develop a sense of attachment to my new environment.
With kids in tow, we visited the Itamaraty
Palace, the National Congress, Don Bosco Sanctuary, the Cathedral, the Place of
the Three Powers, and the city park. Some elements become more apparent; the
sensuality of Niemeyer’s lines, his play on light and his desire to control the
viewer’s experience. Yet I could see the neglect of some buildings, the hastiness
in which they were built, and the lack of integration to their immediate
surroundings. It was not love at first sight.
Figure 7: View across the esplanade of Ministries and the Monumental Axis, with the National Museum in a far distance on the left. Photo: © Fiona Murphy
One night, coming back from the suburbia, I drove on the
monumental axis. There for the first time since my arrival, I was in awe: the
fountains of the Justice Hall were pouring water over a lit basin, creating an
amazing and unexpected sight. It was like a treasure out of a box, a shining
modernist architecture jewel in the night, ethereal yet fully anchored.
Delightful.
A Recreated Center
In my meanderings, I encountered very few gathering places.
Below the TV tower a handicraft market is held during the weekend, and has a
certain feel of authenticity. In the same manner, the area around the
rodovaria is bustling with activity. But
the bareness of the space around it, the lack of urban furniture – benches, trees
for shade, etc – leaves the pedestrian to wander between traffic lanes to his
destination at his perils.
Figure 8: View of the entrance of the Rodoviaria , with Conjuncto Nacional in the distance. Photo: © Fiona Murphy.
Above the rodoviaria,
on a raised platform stands an immense building with its four façades entirely
adorned with large advertising boards: Conjunto Nacional. This shopping center,
as well as many others in the city, seems to serve as a public urban space. I
found the mall busy with visitors even before store opening hours. This large
hall is not a fully enclosed building; its large openings have replaced doors to
the exterior, letting the breeze engulf itself into the public space. The
effect is of a public square, complete with benches and pathways, providing
shoppers and visitors a place to linger, meet, shop. A place to stroll safely
away from the cars and dangerous crossings. In front of the shopping mall is
one of the rare place I noticed beggars; I wondered if that was just a
coincidence.
Figure 9: View of Rodovaria area. Photo: © Fiona Murphy.
Figure 10: View from Conjoncto Nacional showing the top platform above the Rodovario the National Theatre behind, and the National Museum and the Cathedral in the far distance. Photo: © Fiona Murphy.
Inclusion or Lack Thereof
If I knew Brasilia for its landmarks, I knew Brazil for its
Carnival, its music and its favelas. Where were the favelas in Brasilia, I
wondered? What happened to the poor, where do they live? Brasilia might be
affluent, yet social disparities are immense here.
The
plano piloto accommodates
in fact only 10% of the total population of the capital
. A
typical flat like ours, or the small row-houses behind the W3 road, or even the
individual houses of the suburbs of Lago Sul and Lago Norte, were not intended
for the lower income groups. Some have described Brasilia as a city of
exclusion, where Niemeyer and Costa would have purposely created margins not only
to prevent the development of informal settlements, but also to completely
exclude a lower segment of the population and maintain order
.
In fact, the other 90% have settled in one of the twenty-six
satellite towns that have developed around the large periphery of the city, providing
for what Brasilia has not allowed; cheaper housing, commercial flexibility, a diverse
and less formal form of urban life. Today, the city’s population has more than tripled
from its original plan while the city limits have extended beyond Costa’s
plano piloto. Despite this, Frampton
described Brasilia as two new cities, the formal one designed by Costa, and the
informal one designed to house the workers, on the periphery
.
Surprisingly, one day I accidently took a different road and
drove by a settlement of about twelve families, living on a pile of trash in
very rudimentary shacks. Children were playing along the road, half-dressed,
amid dirt and dead rats. Ironically, this typical Brazilian scene, yet so
uncommon here, is played under the shadow of the ministries.
Figure 11: Informal settlement behind the ministries. Photo: © Fiona Murphy.
An Elusive Sense of Place
After the few first weeks, I felt more apt in commenting the city. I have explored the city trying to figure Brasilia’s secrets,
attempting to understand its layout and sense its vibe. Walking has proven to be
difficult for the lack of crossings, the scale of the roads and the distances
to travel. Consequently I drove around
all the major arteries, monuments and main monuments. I spent endless time
around the superquadras, driving them
up and down, stopping here and there, searching each of them, as if knowing
each of their secrets would reveal more to my understanding of the city. I was looking for a center, a sense of place that would make me feel more at
ease, more at home. At times I also looked in vain to return to a specific
grocer or store, confused by the similarities of the streets.
As I meandered through the thoroughfares, each days driving
around the roundabouts, maneuvering the retornos,
exercising my skills at anticipating the next highway exit and the next
overpass to correct my course. I wonder about the meaning of this city,
wondering if it was only Costa’s expression of the supremacy of the automobile
over the pedestrian. I feel it was as cryptic as the city’s addressing
system. Here, streets have no names; one
can find its way through knowing the number and letters of the sector. It is a
new language so cryptic that we received a detailed list upon our arrival: CLS,
CSC, SEN, SES, SHIS, SHLS, SEPS, SGAS among others.
While elusive, the sense of place never really materialized
neither in any of these
quadras so
similar to one another, nor amid the monuments of its public buildings. No
mater where I went, I keep having the strange feeling of being in the middle of
traffic, of a parking lot or in no-man’s-land.
I agree with Holston, who described Brasilia as “exotic and highly
irrational place in which civilized urban life was marked by its absence”
.
Figure 12: Brasilia and Satellites. By © Gabriella Gama. http://projectivecities.aaschool.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Gabriella-slide6.jpg
Conclusion
Brasilia is a unique city with an exceptional history. Its
intricate planning not only exemplifies the modernist precepts of a specific
era, it is also the symbol of a new Brazil, modern, vibrant, wanting to be
at par with its European counterparts. “Brasilia
was built to be more than merely the symbol of this new age. Rather, its design
and construction were intended as means to
create
it by transforming Brazilian society.
”
For Frampton Brasilia is the embodiment of the failure of
the modernist project
. But
the city itself is far from being a complete failure; its inhabitants love it
for its greenness and safety; it is economically thriving. Some major
shortcomings, such as major arteries cutting the urban fabric, are certainly
difficult to correct. Aside these, other problems could certainly be eliminated.
A variety of simple facilities – such as sidewalks, urban walkways, benches,
improved parking layouts, to name a few – could heighten the experiment of the
superquadra, potentially transforming
and improving the lives of its residents.
Focusing on an image rather than on its inhabitants, almost
all the modern principles found in Le Corbusier’s literature have inspired
Costa to the point of becoming dogmas. Today a pervasive cult of personality
seems to prevent any common sense in correcting grave urban mistakes
.
Let’s hope preservationists will eventually come
around. The preservation of this unique piece of modernist heritage does not need
to conflict with the making of a city better for those who inhabit it.
de Holanda, Frederico and Gabriela Tenorio (2011). Brasilia: Preservation, Ambiguity and
Power. Consulted on March 01, 2013
on http://www.academia.edu/2558260/Brasilia_preservation_ambiguity_and_power
Macedo, Danilo Matoso and Sylvia Ficher (2013). Brasilia: Preservation of a Modernist City.
