A Saint’s dream: Brasilia

A Saint’s dream: Brasilia

During the presidency of Juscelino Kubitschek96, the capital of Brazil was moved from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia, in the central-western region of the country. Brasilia was the name originally given to the modernist project, also known as the ‘Pilot Plan’, for a limited area in a central location in Brazil’s geography, roughly corresponding to the site indicated by St. John Bosco as the birthplace of a future magnificent city97 .

96 Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira (1902 - 1976) was a Brazilian politician and physician, who was mayor of Belo Horizonte in 1940, governor of Minas Gerais State from 1950 to 1955, and president of Brazil from 1956 to 1961. He was later elected Senator for the State of Goiás in 1962. As President, he stimulated industrialisation, especially in the automobile sector, which led to rapid economic growth but also to an increase in public debt, both internal and external. Accused of corruption at the same time as the military dictatorship came to power, he retired from political life in 1964. He died in 1976 in a car accident in Resende, near Rio de Janeiro, in circumstances that are still unclear. 97 In 1883 the Italian priest St. John Bosco (1815 - 1888) had a prophetic dream in which he described a futuristic city that corresponded more or less to the location of Brasilia. Today, there are numerous references in Brasilia to this educator who founded the Salesian Congregation. One of the main cathedrals, Santuário Dom Bosco, bears his name, as does the Ermida Dom Bosco, a vantage point where John Bosco is said to have declared that this city ‘of gigantic fruits’ would be born. On 4 September Don Bosco described his Second Missionary Dream, which he experienced at San Benigno Canavese (TO) on 30 August 1883, to the members of the Third General Chapter. Fr. Lemoyne immediately put the dream into writing and Don Bosco completed and retouched the text. Referring to the future riches of South America he said: “[...] Between grade 15 and 20 there was a very wide and very long bosom (a plateau) which started from a point where a lake was formed. Then a voice said repeatedly: When the mines hidden in the middle of these mountains are dug, the promised land will appear here flowing with milk and honey. There will be an inconceivable wealth [...]”, Semeraro C. 2007, Don Bosco e Brasilia, «Ricerche Storiche Salesiane. Rivista semestrale di storia religiosa e civile», vol. 50, n. unico, pp. 381-384.

For the realisation of the new city, Lúcio Costa98 was called in for the urban planning and Oscar Niemeyer99 served as the chief architect for most of the public buildings, along with Roberto Burle Marx100 as landscape designer101. In 1957 Lúcio Costa outlined this manifesto for the capital city:

It should not be envisaged merely as an organism capable of performing adequately and effortlessly the vital functions of any modern city, not merely as an Urbs, but as a Civitas, possessing the attributes inherent to a capital102 .

The project, inspired by Le Corbusier’s design theories103 , was the result of functionalist thinking which distributed

98 Lúcio Marçal Ferreira Ribeiro de Lima e Costa (1902 - 1998), was a Brazilian architect and urban planner who, as well as being one of the founding fathers of Brazilian modernism and head of the International School of Fine Arts, contributed for almost forty years, as an employee of the Serviço do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional, to the study and protection of his nation’s historical heritage. 99 Oscar Niemeyer (1907 - 2012) was a Brazilian architect known for the fluid forms of his designs. He designed buildings for the Pampulha Architectural Complex, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Niterói and major buildings in the Brazilian capital. 100 Roberto Burle Marx (1909 - 1994), Brazilian landscape architect who created many exceptional gardens in association with important modern buildings. He replaced formal European-style gardens with the lush tropical flora of his own country. 101 D’Auria Learchi L. 2015, La chiave, West Press, Castellammare di Stabia. 102 Costa L. 1957, Relatório do Plano Piloto de Brasília; DePHA, Brazil, p. 77. 103 Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (1887 - 1965), Swiss architect, urban planner, designer and painter considered to be the master of the Modern Movement thanks to his theorisation of five points of modern architecture such as the pilotis, the roof garden, the free plan, the free façade and the ribbon window. Author of several books including Verso un’architettura of 1923, an indispensable contribution to the transformation of 20th century architectural thought. He has linked his name to projects such as the Villa Savoye, the League of Nations building in Geneva, the NotreDame chapel in Ronchamp and Chandigarh, the ‘silver city’ in the Punjab.

Brasilia

Fig. 18 City plan of Brasilia (Lúcio Costa 1956) Public domain, from the image available at www.dominiopublico.gov.br, U.S. Dept. of State, edited by Felipe Micaroni Lalli.

neighbourhoods on the basis of the activities carried out there. Brasilia was built in 41 months, from 1956 to 21 April 1960, and was inaugurated in 1961104. The new capital was designed to accommodate a population of 500 000 inhabitants in an area of 5 850 km². These development forecasts were put into law in 1953. The city was characterised by an airplane-shaped plan, crossed by a main curved axis, the monumental one, which extended in an east-west direction and from which two

104 Carvalho Santos T. C. 2010, La Brasilia pensata e quella reale, «Dialoghi Internazionali, città nel mondo», n. 14, pp.116-135.

wings, designed as residential areas, unfolded in a northsouth direction (Fig. 18). On the curved axis a wide central highway was placed, connected to secondary roads for local traffic. The main residential areas were located along this axis105. The project was inspired by the guidelines of the Garden City movement106, characterised by an abundance of open green spaces and low-density occupation, giving the urban environment a park-like feel107. Brasilia’s empty spaces were considered elements of the modernist structure, inspired by the immense lawns of English landscapes108 . The pilot plan for Brasilia was built having Le Corbusier’s Athens Charter109 in mind: this proposed the qualities of a

105 Costa C., Lee S. 2019, The Evolution of Urban Spatial Structure in Brasília: Focusing on the Role of Urban Development Policies, «Sustainability », vol. 11, n. 2. 106 The Garden Cities movement was an urban planning movement of the late 19th century in England, the brainchild of Ebenezer Howard who published the book To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (reprinted in 1902 as Garden Cities of tomorrow) in 1898. The movement aimed to combine the primary benefits of a country environment with those of an urban structure, avoiding the disadvantages presented by both. His ideal garden city would house 32 000 people on a site of 6 000 acres (2 400 hectares), and would be designed on a concentric pattern with open spaces, public parks and six 37-foot wide radial avenues from the centre. The idea was that the garden city would be self-sufficient and once it reached full population, another garden city would be built nearby. Howard envisioned the construction of several garden cities as satellites of a central city of 58 000 people, connected to it and to each other by roads and railways. 107 Campos, N.L.O. 2003, Mudança no Padrão de Distribuição Social a Partir da Localização Residencial: Brasília, Década de 90, Ph.D. Thesis, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 108 Carpintero A.C.C. 1998, Brasília: Prática e Teoria Urbanística do Brasil, 1956/1998, University of São Paulo Press, São Paulo. 109 The Athens Charter was a document, published in 1938 following the Fourth International Congress of Modern Architecture in 1933, which

modern ideal city, based on four fundamental principles: well-ventilated buildings close to green spaces; separation of homes from workplaces and industries away from the urban core; exclusive spaces for cultural activities close to homes; and separation of vehicle and pedestrian circulation. Bearing in mind the typical urban planning layout of ancient cities, both Greek and Roman, the crossaxial scheme was chosen and subsequently developed for Brasilia. It is a peculiar urban place, characterised by: • a strict code of land-use that limits the functions of the various areas, separating housing from other activities; • large superblocks (‘superquadras’), having straight streets with few corners; • skyscrapers of homogeneous height, built between 1960 and 1980, sharing a concrete style and located in residential superblocks; • a homogeneous population, mostly of middle-class workers with similar educational background and income, evenly distributed in moderately dense residential areas. The basic scheme, however, had to be adapted to the topography of the site, as there were already plans for an artificial lake to be created with a hydroelectric dam. Because of this geomorphological limit, the city curved into the form of an airplane, rather than a cross. The lake was the most important technological feature to support the future city. The dam on the Paranoá River generated an artificial lake of the same name, with a surface area

aimed to set out the fundamental principles of the contemporary city in 95 points.