Brasilia - Brazil

Brasilia - Brazil

Short Report

Brasilia, a capital that ex nihilo in the middle of the country in 1956 was a milestone in the history of town planning. Urban Planner Lucio Costa and architect Oscar Niemeyer intended that each part - of the layout of the residential and administrative districts (often compared with the form of a bird in flight) the symmetry of the buildings themselves - should be in accordance with the overall design. The official buildings, in particular, innovative and imaginative.

Wide Report

Brasilia, a capital that ex nihilo in the middle of the country in 1956 was a milestone in the history of town planning. The 20th-century principles of cities, as expressed by Le Corbusier, rarely applied to the scale of the capitals. Only two important exceptions exist: Chandigarh and Brasilia. The creators intended for each element of the layout of the residential and administrative districts (often compared with the form of a bird in flight) the symmetry of the buildings themselves, must be consistent with the overall design. The official buildings, in particular, innovative and creative.

The idea of the establishment of a capital in the interior of Brazil is old has done on various occasions since the end of the 17th century. As the elected president of the Republic of Brazil in 1955, Juscelino Kubitschek was the creation of the capital a symbol of its policy to improve the image of the whole of the country, industry and major construction projects. In 1956 he was appointed to a commission to an exact location for the city and an executive body for the implementation of the construction work. In the same year, Oscar Niemeyer was Director of the Department of architecture and urban issues and Lucio Costa won the contest for the plan of Brasilia. This choice has back together the members of a team that already proved its worth, Le Corbusier previously consulted for this project.

The definition of an 'urban ideal based on the separation of functions, the integration of vast nature reserves and a street plan whose wide lanes broke with the tradition of narrower streets, was imprisoned in the theoretical training of Costa and Niemeyer. However, the practical development of a style meant that the primary functionalism of the International Style would be rejected in favor of solutions better adapted to the Brazilian context. In this context, it should be recalled that Niemeyer had built, in 1942-44 against Kubitschek's request, the group in Conference Centers, to have designed, in cooperation with Costa, the Brazilian pavilion at the New York World's Fair in 1939.

The Pilot Plan' Costa drawn up for Brasilia was one of the great expressive power. As he himself described, was born from the first gesture of someone on the designation of a place and take possession of: a cross formed by two bars which intersect at a right angle. This figure was then adjusted to the topography and the natural slope of the site: the orientation was improved by endless the arms of one of the crossbars. The curving north-south axis traces the layout of the broad transportation artery. Together, the residential areas divided into superquadrats, all virtually independent, and each with its own commercial and leisure centers, green spaces, schools, churches, etc.

Perpendicular to the east-west link, known as the monumental Axis, connects the administrative departments of the new town, which was the official capital in 1960. Oscar Niemeyer's most famous buildings were built. They are notable for the purity of their form and their clear monumental character, the result of a prudent balance between horizontal and vertical buildings, rectangular volumes and curved surfaces and the raw, raw materials and polished exterior of certain structures.

One of the most beautiful buildings in the urban landscape of Brasilia are situated around the Plaza of three powers, the Planalto-Paleis , or the hall of the Government, the Congress, with its two skyscrapers flanked by the dome of the Senate building and by the reverse cone of the House of Representatives, and finally the Supreme Court. Other structures of exceptional artistic quality are the Esplanade of the Ministers, the cathedral, the Pantheon of Juscelino Kubitschek and the National Theater.

Source:whc/unesco