brasÍlia: a utopian experiment in modern urbanism

8/12/2019 BRASLIA: A UTOPIAN EXPERIMENT IN MODERN URBANISM

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QUEENS UNIVERSITY BELFAST

SCHOOL OF PLANNING,ARCHITECTURE AND CIVIL ENGINEERING

ESSAY

URBAN DESIGN AS ART

BRASLIA:A UTOPIAN EXPERIMENT IN MODERN URBANISM

ARC3024 History and Theory of Architecture IIIBrbara Ferronato dos Santos

4011780807/01/2014


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Essay Outline

Braslia: a utopian experiment in modern urbanism

Considering urban design simply as an expression of art may lead to a response somewhatlimited to a citys necessities. Planning a city demands knowledge and understanding of a large

range of fields and probably the most important of those might be observing the city itself. The

design of Braslia was created as a response to a recurred desire of an inland capital, being

materialized in the 1950s during the term of President Juscelino Kubitschek, with an urban

scheme created by the architect Lcio Costa. The paradoxes involved in the modernist plan of

Braslia revealed that the reality of the Brazilian society at that moment wasnt the major focus.

Instead, the construction of a city based on the Modernism premises and utopias has revealed

the complicated direction and consequences that the city and its population still undergo after

years Braslia was built.

The construction of Braslia was seen as a significant potential key to ensure the social

and economic development of the nation. As Holston (1989) says: The New World mythology

complements Braslias foundation as an instrument of economic and political development.The matter is that this new idealized plan was considered an instrument of progress and above

all, for the planners, as a product of the urban design art, disregarding many of the contrasts

in which Brazilian society was immersed at that moment and even afterwards.

But more critical accounts lambast the utopian blueprints of the government

and their master planners for an attempt to create a future that radically departs

from the past, but fails to generate a city to which rights are equally availableto all sections of society. It has been noted that informal settlements have

appeared within Braslia, and satellite areas of the city have had the effect of

producing inequality in housing and employment conditions. Public space

hasto some extent been privatized through the eradication of the street and


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zoning systems. Meanwhile, public access to amenities is often dependent on

wealth: many connections presuppose car access, which is limited to the

wealthy. (Williams and Donald, 2011)

The Costa plan set up the outline of a controlled environment in which the

city was conceived as a single unified work of art. (Evenson, 1973)

Even though many of the aims of the government and the planners were achieved by

this bold citys design, many of the Brazilian societys needs were not contemplated by it.

Although the design provided a beginning for Braslia, it did not provide

guidelines for expansion, and it would be inevitable that some modifications in

the plan as well as a number of additions would be necessary. The major

weakness of Costa plan lay in the relatively static quality, and although the

overall conception had merit, it is increasingly evident that a more

comprehensive and flexible scheme was needed. (Evenson, 1973)

Half a century later, Brasilia is the fourthlargest metropolis in the country

and the home of more than two and a half million citizens. Yet fewer than 10

percent are residents of the Pilot Plan area. While the original nucleus

accommodates chiefly the upper middle classes, by far the greater portion of

the population, covering a wider social range, lives in the twentyseven

satellite towns that now exist in the Federal District. (Macedo and Ficher)

We need art, in the arrangements of cities as well as in the other realms of

life, to help explain life to us, to show us meanings, to illuminate the

relationship between the life that each of us embodies and the life outside us.

We need art most, perhaps, to reassure us of our own humanity. However,

although art and life are interwoven, they are not the same thing. Confusion

between them is, in part, why efforts at city design are so disappointing. It is


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important, in arriving at better design strategies and tactics, to clear up this

confusion. (Jacobs, 1961)

The city is not a simple composition of built spaces and voids. It is an expression ofsocial life. In the meantime, it is also a way of influencing social relations as its configuration

and uses play an essential role in its own dynamics. Therefore, urban design should not be

reduced to a civic art. The planning of cities is directly connected to the rise of good quality

areas and harmful ones. Braslia reveals itself as great example of urban design based on very

theoretical concepts, as it is much closer from a movements utopia than of reality, what

brought the city and its inhabitants a series of losses.


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Braslia: a utopian experiment in modern urbanism

Planning a city demands knowledge and understanding not only of the concepts that

governs the present urban design theories. It makes necessary to consider the historicizing and

social contextualizing premises that are always attached to the places and the people who

inhabit or will inhabit those urban spaces. As one of the greatest exemplar of a city planned

according to the Modern Movement premises, Braslia, the capital of Brazil, has come as a very

interesting study case, since its design was based on the idea of something completely new,

disconnected from any attributes of the past. At the same time it was seen as a social and

economic propelling instrument for the nation. Most of all, it is an exemplar of urban design

taken as an art expression, disregarding much of the reality of where it was settled, which led to

the creation of an unsuccessful utopia.

The idea of an inland capital for Brazil was recurrent, according to registers from the

middle of the eighteenth century, with the recurrent idea of a New World supported by the

construction of a new capital in the Central Plateau of Brazil (Holston, 1989, p 16).

Nevertheless, only in the twentieth century this idea started to become something close to

reality. Getlio Vargas, in the 1930s was responsible for the creation of a new constitution,

which incorporated the ordinance of a new capital located in the geographic center of the

country. He was also responsible for a plan which main objectives were the conduction of the

nation to modernization, as well as social and economic progress. However, only in the 1950s,

under Juscelino Kubitscheks administration this goal was achieved. Also included in a

movement, with the slogan 50 anos em 5 O Plano de Metas(Fifty Years of Progress in Five

Years) which aimed to get the nation out of its underdeveloped condition due to the lack of

efficient social and economic public policies in the history of the country (Evenson, 1973), thisgoal, the building of a completely new capital, was seen mainly as a propellant instrument of

progress, at the same time it was considered a symbol of the new nation and its capacity of fast

development.


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The first premise is that the plan for a new city can create a social order in its

image; that is, one based on the values that motivate its design. The second

premise projects the first as a blueprint for change in the context of national

development. It proposes that the new city should be a model of radically

different social practices. (Holston, 1989)

Figure 1. The map expresses the centrality of the new capital, evidencing its distancefrom other state capitals of the country. The occupation of the Central Plateau, was

also seen by its important role of densify the interior of the country.

(Staubli, 1966)


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The creation of a company managed by the government, regards as the initial measure

for the construction of Braslia. NOVACAP, this new corporation, would be responsible for the

direct construction of the new city (Evenson, 1973). Nevertheless, a design should be

established, and the way found to set it was through a national competition, which jury wascomposed by many international jurors. The competition held in 1956, and was won by Lcio

Costa with his city plan based on Modernist concepts. The architect Oscar Niemeyer would be

responsible for the design of the buildings, in other words, by the detailing of Costas Plan.

Lcio Costa may be considered as one of the direct ones responsible for the

establishment of Modern Movement ideals in the Brazilian culture and his statement ensures his

trust in Le Corbusier principles, not as one example among several others, but as the HolyScripture of Architecture (Lcio Costa in Evenson, 1973). Under the influence of Le

Corbusiers theories, especially after his two visits to Rio de Janeiro, in 1929 and 1936,

discussions concerning the role of the architect and urban planner regarding the city as an

instrument of social changes, as well as an expression of a new technological era, had raised

and become the main discourse of the a new generation of Brazilian architects. Yet, this group

was not only composed by the young, it was also part of it, a mature group of architects that had

actually paved the road for changes, since they could no longer find adequate responses for the

city and architecture problems in the traditional concepts, especially those ones based on

Beaux-Arts theories which had large influence, particularly on the Architecture School of Rio

de Janeiro.

The Modern Movement ideas were officially settled in the Congrs Internationaux

dArchitecture Moderne(CIAM) through some manifestos, which the most important one was

The Athens Charter. These manifestos indicated objectives for the new modern city plan, based

on the establishment of five functions that were initially four. These were housing, work,

recreation, traffic and public core for administrative activities(Holston, 1989, p 31). Lcio

Costas plan of Braslia represented the embodiment of these ideas that represented a special

influence over the architects and urban planners politically aligned with the Left, as it also


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The housing scale is represented by theAsa NorteandAsa Sul (South and North wings)

arranged along the north-south axis. They are composed by superquadras (superblocks),

another concept presented by Le Corbusiers ideals for the modern city, each one with an

arrangement of apartment blocks built over pilotis, with a predetermined height that should berespected. These buildings, in the form of slabs, were positioned at right angles to one another

(Evenson, 1973) and the free space between them represents the main green areas of the city

that were thought as the main spaces for leisure and recreation.

Costas scheme represented the most complete realization of the French architects

urban design. Like Le Corbusier, Costa sought to provide a way to have ones cake and

eat it to enjoy the benefits of a technically advanced. Le Corbusier had viewed the

modern city as a symbol of mans technical control of his environment, once defining

the city as the grip of man upon nature. A human operation directed against nature.

In similar spirit was Costas observation that Braslia was a deliberate act of

conquest. (Evenson, 1973)

The residential units were designed, in connection to the citys plan, with the proposal

of equality. The slabs were very similar in sense of access to the amenities of the urban fabric,

as well in their physical characteristics, as faades, materials application and their settlement.

Braslia, as a result of the embodiment of Modernist ideals, would find in these marks the

security of full coexistence of different social classes, and no social stratification.

. The residents of thesuperquadraare forced to live as if in the as if in the sphere of

one big family, in perfect social coexistence, which results benefits for the children who

live, grow up, play and study in the same environment of sincere camaraderie,friendship, and wholesome upbringing. And thus is raised, on the plateau, the

children who will construct the Brazil of tomorrow, since Braslia is the glorious cradle

of a new civilization. (jornal da NOVACA in Holston, 1989)


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Inevitably, this propose failed not only in consequence of the opposite aims that

permeated the ideas of the government leaders and urban designer and architect, as discussed

forward. But first of all, its lack of success settles on its essential utopian premise. A drastic

social stratification was one of the main characteristics of Brazilian society at the time Brasliawas designed, and even afterwards. The denial in observing the existing cities, their dynamics

and conformation, as well as the present social conditions, led Costas plan to fail. One of its

critical points was that the (proposed) design and organization of Braslia was meant to

transform Brazilian society (Holston, 1989). What leads us to one of its most complicated

weaknesses, is the fact the Braslia wasnt effectively designed for the Brazilian people in its

actual condition, it wasnt designed for what people were, but instead, the plan was made for

what people would becomesomeday, being the city itself the changing propeller.

Jane Jacobs has positioned herself as one of the main critics of modernist urban design.

In The Death and Life of the Great American Cities, the journalist and great observer of the city

emphasizes, based on her vision, that art and city dont represent convergent ideas. When we

deal with cities we are dealing with life at its most complex and intense. Because this is so,

there is a basic aesthetic limitation on what can be done with cities:A city cannot be a work of

art. (Jacobs, 1961)Clearly Jacobs tightly rejects the ideals of the orthodox city planning, as she calls the

modernist urban design. The vision exposed in her book may seem a bit exaggerated when

applied to all attempts of urban design. Still, in Braslia, her accusation seems to find the perfect

target, since the plan of the new city was the embodiment of Modern Movement precepts,

disregarding most of the social contrasts in which Brazilian society was immersed, as well as

the observation of existing cities and their failures and successes.

They (planners) assumed that the social contrasts of Brazil were in Braslia already

negated.(Holston, 1989)

The refusing response to the typical life in Brazilian cities, once more, is revealed with

the establishment of big roads of traffic segregating the pedestrian circulation. Even the local


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streets, werent designed for pedestrian use. People should enjoy the outdoor recreation in the

superquadras, leaving the streets for its main functional role, the circulation. This idea operates

on the promise that city seek the sight of emptiness, obvious order and quiet (Jacobs, 1961).

The designation of streets to this simple purpose, eliminates the public and social activities by itsupported. In Brazil, where streets have a typical reinforced role in social activities, being a

promoter of meetings and people interaction, the initial lack of street life, was not seen as an

innovation, but as the feeling of something missing that was actually rooted in the culture of the

Brazilians.

One of the most profound shocks of migrating to Braslia is the discovery that it is a

city without crowds. It is not the absence of crowding that migrants complain of, but

rather the absence of the social life of crowds that they expect to find in the public

places of a city.... The absence of an urban crowd has earned Braslia the reputation of

a city that lacks human warmth. (Holston, 1989)

Another factor that has contributed to the maintenance of utopia Braslias plan status,

was the discrepancy between the government leaders aims and the ones from the planners of

the city. For Braslias construction, a great number of workers was required. As commonly

happens in Brazil, even in the present days, most of them came from Center-West and

Northeast, this last one, still one of the poorest regions of Brazil (Epstein, 1973). As the city

was built, a phenomenon that supposed to be temporary, according to the planners view, had

become a permanent reality of Braslia. The workers who achieved the dream of the new city,

were not intended to leave the Federal District. Due to financial issues or even to the feeling of

right to the new city, the candangos, as those workers used to be called, would require the

right to a residence in Federal District. As a response to those requirements and in an attempt tomaintain the main Braslia character, the planning of cidades satlites (satellite cities) started to

take a shape.

The planned satellite cities that originally should be supplied with urban and community

facilities, were built with the minimal amenities that could be provided. Actually, this lack of


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investment on the city designed for the workers, is no more than a reflection of how Brazilians

politicians frequently deal with low-income people, denying them the right to better conditions

as a real opportunities of social mobility. It represents a recurrent happening observed in

Brazils history. As it can be observed, even in the present days, the Northeast sector of thecountry, from where a significantly part of the candangos are from, still suffers exactly with the

same issues from the seventeenth century.

By denying residential rights to the construction workers, it intended to keep the Brazil

they represented from taking root in the inaugural city. The difficulty with this solution

is that it destroyed the utopian project. The government planners necessarily and even

unconsciously used the only means available to secure their objective: the mechanisms

of social stratification and repression that constitute the very society they sought to

exclude. In so doing, they introduced the principles and processes of this society into the

foundations of Braslia. (Holston, 1989)

Figure 3.

Buddy, I built this city.

This advertising from Esso OilCompany for Brasliasinauguration aimed to point tothe candangos and the right tothe city that they built andwhich could never been enjoyedby them.

(Holston, 1989)


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The Pilot Plan area that, according to Lcio Costa, should be destined to residents from

different social classes, promoting a coexistence of people in different economic conditions, but

still, all of them with the ensured right to the new city, that should become a symbol of the new

Brazilian society, less stratified, and more equal, gradually distanced from these ideals. Withthe governments endorsement to the establishment of an open housing market in the Plano

Piloto, the access to a housing unit in Braslia, became restrict to those with greater economic

condition (Decker, 2000).Progressively, the low-income population and even the medium-class

started to migrate, when not already established there, to the peripheral satellite cities.

Paradoxically to Costas plan, wealth had become a crucial condition to own the right to

Braslias city, either as a condition to inhabit the city, or simply as a condition to circulate in

the Plano Piloto, since many connections presuppose car access, which is limited by the

wealthy. (Williams and Donald, 2011).

The requirement for a new capital set by the Brazilian government in the early and mid-

twentieth century as the symbol of progress of a young and in development nation, in a first

moment, seemed to be aligned with the ideals of the city proposed by the Modern Movement,

as it carries the character of a new ideal built based on the technological and industrial

advancement. However, Braslia was actually built, over the settlement of two paradox

principles, which became evident after its construction. Lcio Costas plan proposed, even that

implicitly, that the new city should be designed to achieve the aims of the Modern Movement,

which assumed that the main role of the city was to ensure social transformation through its

design, creating an egalitarian city, what should be reflected in society as a whole.

Nevertheless, as the city was consolidated, the government revealed its interests in

economically exploring the city, as well as in maintaining the social stratification structurerecurring in Brazilians society, on the new city that should represent a symbol of not only

economic, but also social progress.


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Still, Lcio Costas design retained a serious weakness that very possibly would have

made impossible the success of his endeavor, if it were not for the other contradictions.

Considering his design as a simple expression of Modern Architecture, disregarded from social

contrasts of Brazil, Braslia was seen as a denial of those contrasts and an undeveloped past, as

it was its role to be a new solution for these issues. The guidelines for a future development and

expansion of the city, also had not been provided by Costas plan. The Plano Piloto presents

today only 10 percent of the Federal District population, which is mainly composed of upper

Figure 4. This map scheme evidences the necessary expansion of the city beyond the

Plano Piloto and how the original plan of Braslia failed to contain the population growth.Originally the plan would contain the population of 500,000 residents. The reality, is that

more 2,500,000 inhabit Braslia and their satellites cities.

(AA Graduate School)


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middle classes, by far the greater portion of the population covering a wider social range, lives

in the twentyseven satellite towns that now exist in the Federal District (Macedo and Ficher).

The modern utopian experience of Braslia reflects that a city plan may not be simply

regimented as a work of art. Above all, a city is a reflection of society, and even though positivechanges in inhabitants lives are possible of being implemented through its partial planning, it is

always of major importance that the context of the existing society guides any design, as well as

the observation of the existing cities as a laboratory of the urban science.

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References and Bibliography

" Decker, Thomas (2000). The Modern City: Revisited. Spon Press: London."

Epstein, David (1973). Brasilia, Plan and Reality: A Study of Planned and SpontaneousUrban Development. University of California Press, Ltd. London, England.

" Evenson, Norma (1973). Two Brazilians Capitals: Architecture and Urbanism in Rio deJaneiro and Braslia. Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Hartford.

" Holston, James (1989). The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Braslia.The University of Chicago Press. Chicago.

" Jacobs, Jane (1961). The death and life of great American cities. John Dickens andConner Ltd. Northampton.

" Staubli, Willy (1966). Brasilia. Verlagsanstalt Alexander Koch GmbH. Germany.

" Williams, Austin and Donald, Alastair, (2011). The lure of the city, Pluto Press." Santos, M. Milton (1964). Brasilia, a Nova Capital Brasileira. Caravelle (1963-1965),

No. 03, pp 369-385.http://www.jstor.org/stable/40851588 [13/12/2013]

" Macedo, Danilo Matoso and Ficher, Sylvia. Brasilia: Preservation of a Modernist Cityhttps://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/newsletters/28_1/brasilia.html [14/12/2013]

" Projective cities Architectural Association Graduate Schoolhttp://projectivecities.aaschool.ac.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2012/11/Gabriellazslide6.jpg>[12/2013]

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