|
 People don't seem to live in Brasília in the true sense of the
word—they exist on a more profound and yet
transient level, moving from place to place like
smoke blown from a guttering candle.
By Philip Blazdell
Coming into land at Brasília was meant to be the highlight of my latest swing through
Brazil. I had arrived at São Paulo airport early and flirted outrageously with the frumpy
check in girl to ensure that I got a window seat that wasn't over the wing. I was looking
forward to seeing the city slowly take form through the early morning clouds and to be
able to brag, for months to come, that indeed I had been to the governmental center of
Brazil and that indeed it did look like an airplane from the sky. However, the vagaries of
seat allocation had left me marooned in the middle seat and as we came into land the only
view I had as I craned my neck, and camera, towards the window, were the heaving breasts
of the girl next to me who was, thankfully, deeply engrossed in the latest gossip magazine
and oblivious to me leering.
Brasília has a population of over 1 million and is the de-facto capital of Brazil. It
is located in the Central-West Region of Brazil. The city was planned and constructed in
the late 50's and early 60's during the government of President Juscelino Kubitschek. The
idea behind it was to fill the great void in the deserted Central-West Region and to
attract settlers in an effort to integrate this region with the coastal areas. The city
was carefully planned by some of Brazil's most famous architects after an aerial survey of
the region. Many people might say that it's a pity that Mr. Niemeyer and friends hadn't
conducted their survey on a commercial flight (as I had just attempted to do) or things
might have turned out a little more aesthetically appealing.
Conceived as a utopian capital city that would metamorphose Brazilian society into a
new social order, Brasília is the apotheosis of the modernist belief in architecture as
an agent of change. It is a city with no past or rational future, a melting pot of
architectural thinking and styles and a deeply strange place to visit. In my mind, it is
as far from Brazil as Blackpool, England, is from Rio.
The history of Brasília is by now a familiar one. Commissioned, designed and largely
built within the five-year presidential term of Juscelino Kubitschek (1956-61), the city
fulfilled Brazil's long-standing objective to have an inland capital that would
simultaneously signal its break from European dependence (embodied in the coastal cities
of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo) and act as a spur to development of the country's vast
interior.
Laid out on a previously uninhabited site (selected with the aid of U.S. surveyors)
according to a plan by Lúcio Costa, Brazil's elder statesman of modern architecture, and
boasting buildings by Oscar Niemeyer, a disciple of Le Corbusier and a former student of
Costa, Brasília represented a modernizing leap for South America. Along the two main axes
sketched by Costa—a straight, ceremonial north-south axis, site of the major
government buildings, and a longer, curving east-west axis for the city's residential
quarters Niemeyer placed ministries and apartment blocks in a configuration that nearly
fulfilled modern architecture's urban aspirations: a functional, rationally planned
"radiant city" realized in the New World. At least, that was the general idea.
The ride from the beautiful open planned airport downtown took me gently through
rolling fields and tropical vistas which both calmed and tricked me into a false sense of
security. The roads were well preserved and the early morning cloud had burnt off. It was
going to be a lovely day and stalls were just beginning to set up along the side of the
road selling sacks of oranges and pineapples. Everything appeared, as it should: calm, sun
bleached and full of life.
And then, out of the shimmering heat haze emerged something which just didn't belong on
this dusty burnt plain—a city. But, it was not a city. It couldn't possibly be. There
was something almost organic about it—like it was slowly growing up from the
unforgiving land and evolving before my eyes. Each kilometer we moved closer to the city
the view changed subtly. Sun glinted off chromed façades, the roads widened and the
stalls, the people, the life dropped away. All the clichés I had heard about Brasília,
its sterility, its surrealness and its overpowering architecture were true and I couldn't
help but gasp. My taxi driver told me that Brasília could only exist in Brazil—and I
believed him.
I was dropped outside the Ministry of Mines and Energy. Across a multilane highway was
the famous cathedral, which unlike the rest of the city seemed to be growing down rather
then up. Apart from the fact there was not a cloud in the sky and I was melting in my dark
suit, it could have been Liverpool's cathedral. Outside, there was some kind of protest
taking place and the security guard told me that it would probably evolve into a candle
lit vigil as the sun dipped below the horizon. He didn't know what it was about and as he
ushered me into the building he shrugged his powerful shoulders as if to say who cares.
Life here never follows a preordained or understandable pattern.
The building, partly due to the energy crisis and partly due to poor internal design
was badly lit and I stumbled from floor to floor looking for the room where I was meant to
be. Niemeyer's talent obviously didn't extend to internal design as I keep running into
blind corners, dusty stairwells and through rooms packed with empty cubicles where hoards
of grey suited bureaucrats should have been beavering away. The mournful ring of the
occasional telephone startled me and reminded me that I was not walking through a movie
set or a computer simulation. This was a feeling that accompanied me wherever I went in
Brasília—a feeling of awe mixed with disbelief.
Later, armed with a map I tried to walk to my next meeting. After a few minutes of
walking through the syrupy heat I realized that I was alone on the street and that there
was no one else in view. Twenty hot minutes later when I was no where near to my next
meeting I flagged down a cab and dived into its air-conditioned interior. The taxi driver
looked at me questioningly for a few minutes then gave a polite cough:
'Why were you walking down the street?'
'Oh, it's a nice day and I have some time to kill between meetings.'
'But,' he smiled, 'no one, absolutely no one walks in Brasília. It's just not designed
for people. For cars, perhaps, for buses maybe, but people…are you mad?'
I spent the rest of the journey in deep contemplation of a world where everyone owned a
car and lived in isolated air conditioned environmentally packaged units. I couldn't help
but shudder.
Brasília may just be the place where the next great civilization may spring from. It
may be the place where great legislative changes will pour forth and change the lot of the
average Brazilian. It may also be the place where civil issues finally come to the front
of a subdued national consciousness and rise phoenix like from today's chaos to bring long
term stability and prosperity to the continent. It may be all these things, or none. But,
despite its wide deserted streets, its science fiction inspired architecture and its
strange compartmentalized layout I couldn't help but bond with Brasília and found myself
quite quickly coming to terms with it.
Perhaps the real attraction of Brasília is its population. Moving through the offices
and ministries you continually meet the most nomadic of city dwellers. It's not the
surreptitious shuffling of airline timetables or the ghost-town like feel of places on
Friday afternoon or Monday morning but the way that everyone seems permanently on the move
and in transit between Brasília and somewhere—anywhere—else. People don't seem
to live in Brasília in the true sense of the word—they exist on a more profound and
yet transient level, moving from place to place like smoke blown from a guttering candle.
For me, it was like a strange coming home.
Art critic Robert Hughes described Brasília as 'a utopian horror. It should be a
symbol of power, but instead it's a museum of architectural. It is a ceremonial slum
infested with Volkswagens'. Niemeyer responded, 'I sought the curved and sensual line. The
curve that I see in the Brazilian hills, in the body of a loved one, in the clouds in the
sky and in the ocean waves.' Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin said that, '…the
impression I have is that I'm arriving on a different planet.' However, my favorite quote
comes from Julian Dibbel who described Brasília as, '…intended, after all, to give
the impression of having been built neither by nor for mere earthlings. A race of
hyperintelligent Volkswagens, perhaps, or aliens who speak a language made up entirely of
Euclidean axioms, might be expected to feel at home in this sidewalk-poor zone of
perfectly circulating asphalt arteries and relentlessly clean lines of design—but not
any species as puny and unkempt as homo sapiens'
But this is only one aspect of the truth, and compared to other planned cities I had
visited, Brasília definitely seemed to offer more potential. I guessed this was something
to do with the difficulty of imposing meaninglessly rigid rules on the Brazilians rather
then the failure of architectural idealism.
Impressive architecture, it seems, does not equate to ideal living conditions—a
fact which many people overlook and away from the glam and glittery life of embassy
parties and governmental limos, the less fortunate eke out an existence in the favelas
(shantytowns) which surround Brasília. These people, who nightly watch the sun drain from
the sky and color chrome fronted buildings shades of blood, are also deeply ingrained with
nomadic desires. Come nightfall, and after the first beer has quenched parched throats,
there is only one topic of conversation—home and how one day, after making their
fortune in the gold-lined streets of the nation's capital, they will return to their
homes—older, wiser and richer. A dream, perhaps, we all should share.
Philip Blazdell is English by birth, a scientist by training and a
traveler by nature. He has traveled extensively in Brazil and is a regular contributor to
numerous magazines and Web pages. He can be contacted at pblazdell@scigen.co.uk
Send
your
comments to
Brazzil
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed