Brasília’s pilot plan: vision and design
The design for Brasília’s layout was critical in 1956, because the government of Juscelino Kubitschek (known as JK) intended to complete the city by 1960, when JK would potentially be up for reelection and his victory was by no means certain. There were forces opposed to moving the capital from its location in Rio de Janeiro to the scrubland of the interior, in the state of Góias.
The idea of Brasília goes back to 1789, when the revolutionary Tiradentes first formulated the idea of a capital in the center of the country, rather than at the coast. The idea was enshrined in the country’s constitution in 1891, and the Cruls Mission topographically mapped the region over the next two years. But the idea of an interior capital would not take shape until JK became obsessed with the project and moved toward making it a reality in 1956.
The name of the architect Oscar Niemeyer is universally associated with the modernist design of Brasília, but the mind behind the city’s footprint on the high plains was Lúcio Costa. Costa was born and grew up in Europe and returning to Brazil, he studied architecture and initially pursued neoclassicism. Costa was later influenced by Le Corbusier, the modernist Swiss architect and urbanist, and began to pursue a more modern esthetic. In 1957, Costa entered his design for the proposed new capital to JK’s planning commission Novacap (nova capital, or new capital) that was judging the many urban design entries.
History records that selection of Costa’s design was controversial, as it was quite vague, and he won over more studied submissions. Costa was already an architectural and urban planning star, and he most likely won because he captured the zeitgeist of “order and progress” that is emblazoned on the Brazilian flag and voiced the soaring optimism for the future that was fervent at the time.
Costa’s design was in the form of an airplane, with a central area and north and south wings. He separated the cityscape by function: monumental, or government; residential; gregarious, or social; and bucolic, or green space.
The monumental area was the fuselage of the plane, with the plaza of the Tres Poderes giving equal emphasis to the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government. While the power of Brasília’s design has lost its luster over the years since its construction, this sweeping area, overarched by the vast sky of the altiplano (high plains) is awe-inspiring to this day. The tall dominoes of the ministry buildings still march toward the brilliant ever after, even if Brasília’s status as a smart city has fallen into history.
Costa’s design was inherently based on worship of the automobile as the engine of the future, and his multi-laned thoroughfares were considered ridiculously large at the time of Brasília’s construction. The car was not supposed to invade the residential areas, and featured a system of curving tesourinhas, or little scissors, take vehicles off the main roads and into the residential area—though to go to the left, you first have to go to the right. It is, at least for me, a dizzying and disorienting driving experience.
The design of residential buildings in the super-quadras (residential blocks) was limited to six stories and interwoven with green areas. With small businesses on the main residential block roads, these areas are leafy and engaging. Unfortunately, because there is not enough housing capacity in these areas, most people live in satellite cities and commute to the city to work.
The bucolic areas are increasingly beautiful, as mature growth and the constant planting of more trees make Brasília a verdant and inviting city and a welcoming place for birds. This aspect of Costa’s original design has stood the test of time. As of this writing I’m here in Brasília for the launch event of my historical novel, a lua ao avesso, and renting a kitchenette (studio apartment) in the Hotel and Tourism Sector in the Lago Norte area. A few mornings ago, I opened my windows and two brilliant blue macaws blew by in unison. The tree outside my fourth floor flat is constantly abuzz with the chattering of bem-te-vis and the flitting of hummingbirds.
To my eye, the plano piloto with its curving north and south wings looks more like a dragonfly or a bird than an airplane. It sits atop and amid the Lago Paranoá, an dammed reservoir built on areas that historically flooded and were recommended to be made into a lake by the Cruls Mission.
Brasília grew up to be a inextricably linked to the automobile, and it is impossible to live and work here without a car. The dizzying tesourinhas and the pleasant residential blocks that all look alike end up being disorienting. The sensible design that placed similar activities and businesses together, as in government functions in the monumental sector, printing companies in the graphic sector, and hotels in the hotel and tourism sectors, becomes stultifying, and results in deserted work areas with people fleeing to satellite suburbs after working hours. The design was supposed to make life easier, but this smart city of the future was a dream that never really came true.
Aerial view of the plano pilot by Sergey Ryazanskiy, cosmonaut on International Space Station, 2017