by Norman Kietzmann, 23.11.2010
It is considered a built utopia of modernity: Brasilia, the city from the drawing board, which was built exactly 50 years ago on the Brazilian plateau in only four years of construction. But what is it like to live in a city that was planned as if from a single mold and did not grow naturally? While the Brazilian contribution to the Venice Architecture Biennale focused on Oscar Niemeyer's buildings, an exhibition at the Milan Triennale is now looking for life beyond the strict grid and has found it. Brasilia is urban above all where it eludes planning.
It began with a cross. In the middle of the Brazilian plateau, the newly elected president Juscelino Kubitschek drew the location of the new capital. He had big plans: "50 years of progress in five years," promised the center-left candidate who took power in January 1956, and he didn't waste any time. Only a few days after taking office, his government set the date for the inauguration of the new capital: less than four years now remained until the government was to begin its work in Brasilia on April 21, 1960.
But as dynamic as Kubitschek acted: His plans were not new. Already in the constitution of the first Brazilian Republic in 1891, the construction of a new capital in the Brazilian plateau was suggested in order to carry the upswing from the coastal cities into the interior. Although his predecessors did not reject this suggestion, it was not until Kubitschek that the plans became central to his policies. The site where the new capital was to be built was still so pristine at that time that not even a road led into the densely forested plateau. Kubitschek started his first exploratory tours only by airplane and helicopter, and in the beginning he even spent the night in a tent to get a direct impression on the spot.
He entrusted the planning of the new city to architect and urban planner L&uactue;cio Costa, who took the symbolism of his task quite literally: He drew the ground plan of the city in the shape of an airplane, with the government buildings forming its elongated fuselage, while housing and recreation find their place in the two wings. As head of the state building authority Novacap, Oscar Niemeyer had the task of finally implementing Costa's plans. It almost went without saying that he was able to work in the spirit of modernism. While post-war planning in Europe still had to wrestle with the ground plans of historic cities, in Brasilia tabula rasa was a given from the very beginning. The best prerequisites, therefore, for getting down to work without any compromises.
Floating light curves
What Niemeyer designed in a few weeks was more than just buildings. He translated the institutions of government into stunningly light sculptures that would give a face to the fledgling democracy. The Square of the Three Powers, the Presidential Palace, the Supreme Court and the Congress became architectural icons that were deliberately intended to set themselves apart from the austerity of European modernism. With their organic formal language, they take up a clear counterpoint to the austere, cubic apartment blocks, ten of which were grouped into so-called superquadras. Housed in the two wings of the Aircraft City, they had a square floor plan and were surrounded by extensive green spaces. As freestanding solitaires whose first floor was left open, the parks extended into the foyers of the residential buildings. For this purpose, the garden designer Roberto Burle Marx developed an emphatically geometric formal language, which made them seem like a continuation of the buildings.
Up to 40,000 construction workers were on site at any one time to turn the ambitious plans into reality. The new capital was to have nothing in common with the narrowness of the colonial coastal cities. In keeping with the Charter of Athens, living, working and leisure were separated from each other - connected by even more generous green spaces and hardly less wide streets. There was hardly any space left for pedestrians in this planning. Mobility was promised only by the automobile, which was not only seen as a sign of technical progress, but also marked Brazil's break with its colonial past.
Progress under the sign of oil
Whereas the past had been defined primarily by dependence on coffee exports, the founding of the oil company Petrobras promised greater economic self-determination. In 1953, Kubitschek's predecessor Get&uactue;lio Vargas had partially nationalized oil production, thus securing a share of the raw material revenues that had previously been largely in the hands of U.S. investors. Despite these reprisals, Kubitschek succeeded in attracting other foreign companies to the country. It was no coincidence that the opening of the VW plant in Sao Bernardo do Campo in 1959 became a symbol of the country's economic rise, for which Brasilia provided a fitting backdrop.
But as much as the car-friendly city with its up to twelve-lane roads was seen as a liberating blow, it also created new dependencies. While Niemeyer envisioned a social mix when planning the superquadras, the reality looked different shortly after Brazil's completion. While the middle class of government officials and employees populated the apartments in the center, those with lower incomes were pushed out to the gates of the city. Here, too, a serious planning error was revealed.
Wildly sprawling favelas
For there was room in the city - which was designed for 200,000 residents within the central district Planto Piloto and 400,000 more residents in the suburbs also planned by L&uactue;cio Costa - not for those who had built it. The workers, most of whom had come from the poor north of the country, did not think of returning to their homeland after the city was completed, however. They found housing not only in the numerous suburbs, but increasingly also in favelas sprawling wildly on the outskirts of the city, hardly inferior to those of Rio or São Paulo. Like a dense ring, they drew ever closer around the city and broke through the planning on the drawing board with an uncontrollable and unpredictable dynamism. Instead of the 600,000 inhabitants originally planned, over 2.5 million people now live in the city. And the population continues to grow.
Whereas just ten years ago life in Brasilia was dominated by commuters who left for Rio or São Paulo as quickly as possible on the weekends, urban life is also increasingly making its way into the city. While corner bars were hard to find in the past, they are currently sprouting up like mushrooms. A rethinking of transportation policy also promises to be dynamic. The city's first two subway lines were opened in 2001, and two more routes are currently under construction. By 2014, they will also connect the two largest suburbs and the airport with the city center, making the city passable even without a car. After all, quality of life doesn't just stand for short distances between the underground parking garage and the apartment. It also means that lively hustle and bustle that has so far been in vain in the prefabricated grids of the city. Brasilia becomes urban above all where it eludes planning.
Brasilia - The Utopia Realized
until January 23, 2011
at the Milan Triennale
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