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Some Photos from Brasilia

Posted by WMATAGMOAGH on Wed Jan 19 16:21:18 2011

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Brasilia, the current capital of Brazil, is one of the world's most famous planned cities. After hundreds of years of consideration, proposals, and ultimately a constitutional amendment to move the capital of Brazil from Rio de Janeiro inland, both for security reasons (Rio is right on the ocean) and to be closer to the geographic center of the huge country, the city was literally built out of the ground starting in 1956, and it was officially inaugurated in 1960. The chief urban planner was Lucio Costo and the primary architect was Oscar Niemeyer. The city was designed with the notion that everything had a particular place. There are different sectors of the city for shopping malls, government ministries, and hotels. So for example, all the hotels are concentrated in two sectors near the center of the city. If you don't like where you initially booked your reservation, finding another place to stay is easy since half the city's hotels are within walking distance of where you are. (More hotel sectors have been built recently outside the city center.) Residential areas are strictly residential. Each superblock for housing also has a grocery store, dry cleaner, hardware store, convenience store, and maybe a restaurant or two, but if you really want to go shopping, you have to go to one of the shopping sectors, where you can find all the shopping malls next to each other. The city was also designed with the notion that no one would walk anywhere, and everyone would just drive. As a result, there are few traffic lights, huge highway interchanges, and being a pedestrian in this city is quite difficult. Having an interest in planning, I visited Brasilia when I was in Brazil last summer and as a result of a slight topic drift over on BusChat, decided to share some photos of the city here.

I think the idea of a totally planned city such as this one is a nice idea in theory, but in practice, there are issues with actually building a city this way. Getting around without a car is difficult. The city is very spread out, and one can't do much in the way of shopping or entertainment near one's home. While Brasilia was initially a commuter city that died on the weekends, more and more people are living there full time. Additionally, many of the poor laborers who came to work there when the city was built have had difficult lives since the city's construction was completed, though there aren't any favelas close to the city itself, there are favelas and tent cities in the surrounding area. Fortunately, Brasilia is safer than most other Brazilian cities, but it has gotten more dangerous in recent years. It is a fascinating place to visit and I encourage anyone who goes to Brazil to consider visiting it, especially if they have an interest in city planning or architecture.

A copy of the original city plan by Lucia Costa:


Scale model of the city:


View of the Exio Monumental (the Brazilian equivalent of the National Mall, but much longer than its DC equivalent):




Cathedral of Brasilia (Catedral Metropolitana Nossa Senhora Aparecida):








Congresso Nacional (National Congress) building, which houses the houses of the legislature:







Supremo Tribunal Federal (Brazilian Supreme Court):


Palacio de Planato (Presidential office space):




Palacio da Alvorada (Presidential residence):




Palacio de Justicia, Justice Ministry offices:








Palacio Itamaraty (Ministry of Foreign Relations)




Museu Nacional da Republica (National Museum)




The Esplanada dos Ministirios (Ministries Esplanade)












Santuario Dom Bosco (this church only has one source of artificial light, the chandelier in the middle of the church, visitors can pay 10 BRL to illuminate it for 1 minute):










Cathedral, Ministry buildings, and Congresso Nacional:


National Museum, Cathedral, Ministry buildings, and Congresso Nacional:


An extremely wide street:


Huge highway interchange in the center of the city:




Pedestrians struggling to cross a street:


Feel free to comment or ask questions about my visit there...

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