Notes on Brasilia (I)

Pardon the lengthiness of this post, but I’ve been sitting on this for nearly a month. And let me say now, I would love to hear from any planners (you know who you are) about what they know/think of Brasilia in the comments thread (once it comes back up).

I had the chance to spend a week in Brasília over the Christmas holiday. This was a trip I’d looked forward too, not just because I had free lodging (ah, the benefits of your Brazilian girlfriend having 9 aunts and uncles and 30 cousins). Much has been made of the creation of Brasília. Scholars (most notably James Scott) have studied the city in depth in terms of its role and mission as a planned city built literally in the middle of nowhere Brazil (there was literally nothing there but grassfields before construction begain in the mid-1950s). In terms of national identity, the creation of Brasília looms large in the historical narrative of Brazil, symbolizing an era of unbridled hope and development that would come crashing down in the 1960s and 1970s as inflation and foreign debt took their tolls. (It’s not coincidental that Brazilians remember the presidency of Juscelino Kubitschek, or “JK,” from 1956 to 1960, with the same fondness that Americans held for JFK for years).

However, you can’t fully appreciate just how “planned” Brasília was in many ways until you’re actually there. As Scott says in Seeing Like the State, the city lacks any major form of sidewalks (safe for dirt walkways in the main governmental esplanade, where all the government offices are). This is both remarkable and a pain in the ass. It was something else to enjoy wide avenues that weren’t congested (a luxury Rio lacks), yet at the same time, I had to pay 10 reais to travel a whole 3 blocks in taxi, just to get to the esplanade. I’ve never been anywhere in Latin America that felt as much like the United States, because you ABSOLUTELY HAVE to have a car to get around in Brasília. Also, the original part of the city (stay tuned for part II) really is shaped like an airplane. However, this doesn’t really hinder travel – it’s remarkably compact, much smaller than I’d imagined, which is fortunate, given the dependency on cars and taxis.

I myself got a big kick out of the modern architecture in the esplanade. The rest of the city is rather drab – just giant concrete buildings reminiscent of authoritarian architecture (although pre-dating the dictatorship in Brazil by 4 years). In some ways, the uniformity reminded me a bit of Albuquerque, NM (where adobe dominates everything, giving a sense of sameness, though at least in NM the building shapes themselves display a little more variety than in Brasília). However, the esplanade is fun, with the national cathedral, a new museum designed by Oscar Niemeyer, and the resplendency of the Congress overlooking the mall.

One last thing that really struck me about Brasília was that it is, hands down, the most self-referential city I’ve ever been too. Certainly, Paris outdoes Brasília in terms of quantity of self-referential items, but all of the efforts at building national identity revolve strictly around the city. For example, in the Plaza de Tres Poderes (where the Presidential palace, the Court, and the Congress are located), there is a giant monument to Juscelino Kubitschek, celebrating the creation of Brasília, as well as a giant bust of Lúcio Costa. There is also a giant, scale-model panorama of the city in the Plaza de Tres Poderes, celebrating Brasilia’s modernist shape and creation. Quotations are scattered throughout the city on buildings, commemmorating the process of Brasília. (During a proto-nationalist independence revolt in 1789, the leader, Tiradentes, demanded the capital be moved from coastal Rio de Janeiro to the interior, and in every constitution from that point on, it was promised that, one day, the national capital would be inland, and not on the coast. It was on this article of the constitution that Kubitschek acted). Likewise, when you enter the Congress, there are quotes commemmorating the creation of Brasília. And when you go to the Juscelino Kubitschek memorial, in the northern part of the “fuselage” of the city, they can’t get out of the model of “The man who built Brasília.” This is rather unfortunate, as Kubitschek did more than just create Brasília (he was the last successful president to employ import-substitution models of modernization in Brazil before the dictatorship turned to attracting foreign investors). Indeed, sometimes, in the narrative within his memorial, they tried to break free of this model, but it always fell short. Basically, the narrative came off as, “Brasília! And he made Brasília!! But he did more, such as spur domestic development….but look!! Brasília!!!” Likewise, the museum barely dealt with the contradictions of the city. One had to get deep into a computer kiosk to find mention that, while poor workers migrated to the site to build Brasília, they were basically building a city that would exclude them, as the residences were reserved for middle- and upper-class politicians and functionaries. This self-reference makes sense – the city is only 47 years old this year, so there isn’t much tradition in the region to build on (it’s still surrounded by nothing but sweeping plains reminiscent of the savannah and plantations). Still, to me it was just striking, and really emphasizes how strongly Brasília was not just a modernist project, but a project intended to add glory to the national narrative.