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the History of Brasília

Report of a Pilot Plan for Brasilia

... In 1823, JOSE BONIFACIO known as the Patriarch proposed that the Capital be transferred to Goias, and suggested the name of BRASILIA.

First of all, I must apologize to the Directors of the Urbanizing Company and to the Jury of this Competition for the sketchy manner in which this plan for the new Capital is suggested; then too, I must justify myself.

It was not my intention to enter the competition, and as a matter of fact I am not doing so - I am merely passing on a possible solution which was not sought but, so to speak, took shape almost spontaneously.

I come forward not as properly equipped - I don't even run an office - but simply as a maquis of town planning who would seek to follow through the development of this idea, were it accepted, merely in a consultant capacity. And if I act with such candour, it is because I am based on a line of reasoning which is also very simple: if this idea is valid, then the data though summary in appearance will be sufficient, for they will show that while the original idea took shape spontaneously, it was later carefully thought out and studied; if it is not valid, then it will be easy to eliminate, and I shall not have wasted mine or anybody else’s time.

Simplified entrance requisites for the competition reduced to a certain extent consultation on one most important factor, which is the urbanistic concept of the city itself. Founding a city in the wilderness is a deliberate act of conquest, a gesture after the manner of the pioneering colonial tradition, and the competitor's conception of such a city would be most important. This is particularly so because the city will not be a result of regional planning but the cause of it: its foundation will lead, later, to the planned development of the whole region.

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 Capital. And, for this to be possible, the planner must be imbued with a certain dignity and nobility of intent, because from that fundamental attitude spring the sense of order, fitness and proportion which alone can confer the desirable monumental quality on the urban scheme. Not, let it be clear, in the sense of ostentation but as the palpable and conscious expression, so to speak, of what is worthwhile and meaningful. The city should be planned for orderly and efficient work, but, at the same time, be both vital and pleasing, suitable for reverie and intellectual speculation, it should be such a city as, with time, could become not only the seat of government and administration, but also one of the more lucid and distinguished cultural centers in the country.

Having made these preliminary remarks, let us now consider how the present solution was born, took shape and resolved itself:

1 - Basically, it was born of the primary gesture of one who marks or takes possession of a place: two axes crossing at right-angles; the very sign of the Cross (Fig. 1).

2 - It was then sought to adapt this sign to the local topography, the natural drainage of the area, to the best possible orientation; one of the axes was curved in order to make it fit into the equilateral triangle which limits the urbanized area (Fig. 2).

3 - To apply to the technique of town planning the free principles highway engineering, including the elimination of intersections, the curved axis, which corresponds to the natural ways of access, was made into a through radial artery, with fast central lanes and side lanes for local traffic. Along this axis, the bulk of the residential districts have been placed (Fig. 3).

4 - As a consequence of this residential concentration, the civic and administrative centers, the cultural, entertainment and sporting centers, the municipal administration facilities, the barracks, the storage and supply zones, the sites for small local industries, and the railway station, naturally fell into place along the transverse axis, which thus became the monumental axis of the system. Alongside the intersection of the axes, but appertaining functionally and in terms of urbanistic composition to the monumental axis, the banking and commercial districts have been placed, as well as the offices for private business and the liberal professions, and the ample areas set aside for retail trade.

5 - The intersection of the monument and the highway-residential axes, the former being on a lower level, called for the creation of a broad platform where only parking and local traffic would be permitted, and which logically suggested the location of the entertainment center for the city, with the cinemas, theatres, restaurants, etc. (Fig. 5).

6 - Through traffic to other sectors passes along the lower ground level under the platform, in one way lanes, the platform being closed at its ends but open on the two broader sides; most of this covered area is used for parking, and the inter-urban bus station has been placed there and is accessible to passengers from the upper level of the platform (Fig. 6). When the transversal axis reaches the platform its central lanes go underground, beneath the lower ground level, at which local traffic continues to circulate and which slopes gently down until it levels with the esplanade in the ministry district.

7 - Thus, and with the introduction of three separate clover-shaped turn-offs on each arm of the highway axis, and as many lower level crossings, automobiles and buses circulate both in the central and the residential districts without any intersections whatsoever. For heavy vehicular traffic a secondary independent road system with point crossings was established, but without crossing or interfering in any way with the main system, except above the sports district. This secondary system has access to the buildings of the commercial district at basement level, goes around the civic center on the lower plane, and is reached through galleries at ground level (Fig. 7).

8 - With the general network for automotive traffic thus established, independent paths for local pedestrian traffic were created both in the central and the residential districts, ensuring free circulation (Fig. 8). This separation of automotive and pedestrian traffic was not, however, carried to systematic and unnatural extremes, for it must be remembered that nowadays, the automobile is no longer man's irreconcilable enemy: it has been domesticated and is now, so to speak, one of the family. It only becomes "dehumanized" and reacquires its menacing and hostile aspect to pedestrians when incorporated in the anonymous mass of traffic. A certain degree of separation is therefore necessary, but under certain circumstances and for mutual convenience coexistence is at times indispensable.

9 - Let us now see how the various districts of the city are integrated and articulated within this framework of orderly circulation.

The most outstanding buildings are those which will house the fundamental powers, and because these are three in number, and autonomous, the equilateral triangle seemed the elementary form most appropriate to enclose them; then too, this solution is linked with the architecture of remote antiquity. A triangular terraced embankment was therefore created. It will be supported on retaining walls of rough stone, rising above the surrounding countryside. It is approached from the freeway leading to the residence and the airport (Fig. 9). One of the buildings was placed at each angle of this plaza - Plaza of the Three Powers as it might well be called - with Government House and the Supreme Court occupying the base of the triangle and Congress at the apex. The latter faces a broad esplanade set out on a second terrace, rectangular in shape and on a higher level in accordance with the local topography. The application of this ancient oriental terrace technique, in modern terms, ensures the cohesion of the project as a whole and lends it unexpected monumental strength (Fig. 9). Along this esplanade - a Mail, as the English call it - broad sweeping lawns to be used by pedestrians, and parades - the various ministries and autonomous agencies were placed (Fig. 10). Suitably fitted to their frame, the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice occupy the lower corners near the House of Congress; the military ministries occupy an independent square, and the others are located in sequence, each having a private parking area. The last in the line is the Ministry of Education, so that it stands adjacent to the cultural area for which a park solution has been used, the better to frame the museums, library, planetarium, academies and institutes etc. This sector in turn borders the broad area reserved for University City with its General Hospital, and where it is also planned to set up the Observatory. The Cathedral too has been given a location on the esplanade but has a plaza of its own disposed laterally not so much for reasons of protocol, since the Church is separate from the State, but more for questions of human scale and the intention of enhancing the monument, and finally, for reasons of architectonics: the perspective of the esplanade as a whole must run unimpeded beyond the intersection of the two main axes.

10 - On this platform where, as previously pointed out, only local traffic is permitted, we find the entertainment center: an appropriate mixture of Piccadilly Circus, Times Square and the Champs Elysées. The side of the platform facing the cultural district and the ministerial esplanade beyond it has no buildings, with the exception of a possible tea house and the Opera, and these can be reached both from the entertainment center itself and from the neighbouring cultural district, which is on a lower level. On the front face of the platform the cinemas and theatres have been concentrated, the pattern chosen being low and uniform so that they form a single, harmonious and continuous architectonic whole; they have a gallery, broad pavements, terraces and cafes, and the full height of the respective façades can serve for the installation of illuminated signs and advertisements (Fig. 11). The various theatres and cinemas will be connected with each other by lanes in the traditional manner of "Rua do 0uvidor", by Venetian alleys or covered galleries (arcades), and will be articulated to small patios containing bars and cafes, with "loggias" overlooking the park -all of which will contribute towards an expansive and gregarious atmosphere (Fig. 11). The ground level at the center of this group of theatres and cinemas is left open throughout, except for the places of access to the upper floors, in order to maintain a continuity of perspective, and it is planned to have those upper floors glassed in on two sides, so that the restaurants, clubs, tea-rooms, etc., may have a good view. On one side they will look out over the lower-level esplanade, and on the other over the slopes of the park along the extension of the monumental axis, where the commercial and tourist hotels are located, and, beyond them, to the tower of the radio and television stations, which has been integrated as a plastic element in the general composition (Figs. 9, 11 and 12). Set sideways in the central part of the platform is the entrance hall of the bus station with ticket booths, bars, restaurants, etc., it being a low structure connected by escalators to the lower level embarkation hall which is separated by glass walls from the buses themselves. The one-way traffic system causes outgoing buses to make a clockwise or counter-clockwise turn around the outside of the area covered by the platform, affording the passengers a last view of the city's monumental axis before entering the residential-highway axis - a psychologically desirable opportunity for a farewell. On this great platform, chiefly intended for parked vehicles as on the ground floor, space has also been allowed for two ample pedestrian plazas, one facing the Opera and the other, symmetrically laid out, set before a low pavillion facing the gardens of the cultural district and reserved for a restaurant, bar and tea-room. In these plazas the one-way traffic lanes rise slightly a large extension leaving pedestrian crossings in either direction unimpeded, and giving free and direct access both to the shopping centers and to the banking and office district (Fig. 8).

11 - Placed laterally to this central entertainment district, and articulated to it, there are two great nucleii reserved exclusively as shopping centers, and two other areas, one reserved for the banking and commercial enterprises and the other as office space for the liberal arts professions, agencies, representatives, etc.; in the former the Bank of Brazil, and in the later the Central Post Office and Telegraph building. These areas and districts can be reached by car directly from the various traffic lanes, and by pedestrians along paths free from traffic crossings (Fig. 8); they have car-ports for two-level parking and service entrances in the basements - which correspond to the lower level of the central platform. It is planned that the banking and office districts should each contain three high-rise blocks and four lower ones, all interconnected by a vast street-level wing, providing sheltered walkways from one building to another and giving ample space for the installation of bank and company agencies, cafes, restaurants, etc. For each of the shopping centers an ordered sequence of long, low blocks plus one taller block is proposed, the latter equal to the high-rise buildings in the banking district, all of which connected by a spacious ground level unit with ground-floor, first floor and gallery shops. Two raised arms of the traffic lanes are also used here to provide free pedestrian circulation.

12 - The sports district, including a very large area reserved exclusively for parking, has been located between the Municipal plaza and the radio transmitter tower, which is envisaged as a triangular structure standing on a monumental base of unfaced concrete and having, above the floor level of the studios and other installations, a metal superstructure with an observation tower half way up (Fig. 12). On one side is the stadium with its dependencies, and beyond it the Botanical Gardens; on the other is the race course with its stands and riding club, and the Zoological

Gardens beyond. These two vast green spaces, symmetrically laid out in relation to the City's monumental axis, will serve as the new city's "lungs" (Fig. 4).

13 - In the Municipal plaza were sited the Town Hall, Police Headquarters, the Fire Brigade and the Public Welfare Building; a prison and an asylum are also part of this district, though set at some distance from the urbanized core.

14 - Beyond the municipal sector space was set aside for the garages of the city's public transport system, beyond them again on both sides lie the military barracks, and a broad transversal strip reserved for small local industries completes the sector. This industrial area has its own autonomous residential section, and is connected with the railway station and with a branch of the heavy vehicular highway.

15 - Having run the length of city's monumental axis, it can be seen that the fluency and unity of the layout (Fig. 9) from the Government Plaza at one end to the Municipal plaza at the other does not preclude variety, and that each sector forms what we might call an autonomous plastic unit within the whole. This autonomy creates spaciousness on a noble scale, and permits the appreciation of each unit's individual qualities without adversely affecting their harmonious integration in the urban whole.

16 - The solution envisaged for the residential problem calls for a continuous sequence of large blocks set in double or single line along both sides of the residential highway axis, each surrounded by bands of greenery planted with trees. In each block one particular type of tree would predominate, the ground would be carpeted with grass and, on the inner approaches, an additional curtain of bushes and plants would grow, the better to screen the contents of the blocks and make them appear on a second plane as though merged into the scenery, whatever the observer's vantage point (Fig. 13). This layout has the double advantage of guaranteeing orderly urbanization even where the density, type, pattern or architectonic quality of the buildings varies, and of giving the inhabitants tree-lined strips in which to walk or take leisure, other than the open spaces foreseen within the blocks themselves.

Within these "superblocks" the residential buildings could be arranged in many and varying manners, always provided that two general principles are observed: uniform height regulations, possibly six stories raised on pillars, and separation of motor and pedestrian traffic, particularly on the approaches to the elementary school and public facilities existing in each block (Fig. 8).

On the far side of the blocks runs the service street for heavy vehicles, and a strip along the other side of that highway is reserved for the installation of garages, repair shops, wholesale warehouses, etc. Beyond these utilities another strip of land is set aside, equivalent to a third row of squares, for flower and vegetable gardens and orchards. The churches, secondary schools, cinemas and retail stores have been placed on broad strips which join the service and residential axis highways at intervals, and are served alternately by one or the other. The layout of these buildings in each case is according to their type or nature (Fig. 13).

The market, butchers, grocers, greengrocers, hardware stores, etc., are located in the sections of the strip nearest to the service lanes; the barbers, hairdressers, dress-makers, cake shops, etc., are in the section nearest the traffic lane used by cars and buses; here, too, are the service and gas stations. The shops are set in ranks, with display windows and covered walks facing the pedestrian approaches and the wooded belts surrounding the blocks, while parking is foreseen on the opposite side of the shops, adjacent to the traffic lane. Transverse lanes permit access from one approach to the other, and the shops are thus broken up into pairs while retaining their overall relationship as one single unit (Fig. 14).

The local Church has been placed where four blocks meet, and behind it are the secondary schools, while the cinema has been placed on the section of the service strip facing the highway to make it easily accessible from other districts; the large free space between the shops on the one hand and the cinema on the other is reserved for a youth club, with playing fields and play-grounds.

17 - Social gradations can easily be regulated by giving a higher value to certain blocks, such for example as the single blocks bordering on the embassy district. This district lies on both sides of the residential highway parallel to the city's main axis, and has an independent avenue for access, while it shares the heavy vehicles traffic lanes with the residential blocks. It is intended to build only on one side of this private avenue leading to the embassies and legations - leaving the other free for an unimpeded view of the landscape - with the one exception of the leading hotel, which will be located in that district at a point near the center of the city. Along the residential highway axis, the blocks closer to the highway will naturally be valued more highly than the inner blocks, which will permit gradations inherent to the economic system. Nevertheless, the grouping of the superblocks in sets of four will favor a certain degree of social co-existence, avoiding undue and undesirable class distinctions. Furthermore, differences in standards between one block and another will be neutralized by the urbanization plan proposed, and will be of such a nature as not to affect the comforts to which all are entitled. Such differences will be the result of a greater or lesser density, of more or less space allocated to each individual and each family, and of the choice of building materials and quality of the finishing. In this connection it is very important to avoid the mushrooming of hovels either in the urban or the rural areas; it is up to the Urbanizing Company, within the proposed plan, to provide decent and economic accommodation for the entire population.

18 - Isolated residential districts have also been planned, surrounded by trees and open countryside, to be sold in lots for single family homes. It is suggested that the layout here be of saw-toothed lots, so that the houses built on the upper lots stand out in the landscape well separated from each other; nor will this layout impede independent service access to all the lots (Fig. 15). Also foreseen is the eventual construction of isolated houses with high architectural standard - regardless of their size - but in such cases it will be required to space the houses at one kilometer from each other at least, to accentuate the exceptional nature of such concessions.

19 - By placing the cemeteries at the ends of the residential highway axis, funeral processions will not need to cross the urban center. These cemeteries will be landscaped with lawns and suitable trees, the tomb5 to be smooth and the headstones simple - in the English tradition - the whole to be completely unostentatious.

20 - Using the lakefront as a site for residential districts was avoided in order to preserve its beauty intact, landscaping it with woods and fields in a natural and rustic manner, so that the urban population can enjoy its simple pleasures. Only athletic clubs, restaurants, places of entertainment, beach resorts and fishing groups may be built on the shoreline water's edge. The Golf Club was placed at the eastern end, next to the Presidential Residence and the hotel (both under construction at present), and the Yacht Club on a nearby cove, separated from the Golf Club by dense woods reaching right to the edge of the dam, which at this point is bordered by a drive. This drive circles the lake but occasionally turns from its banks to wander through the fields which, eventually, will be gracefully laid out with plants and trees. It is connected to the residential highway and also to the independent highway which connects the airport and the civic center and will be used by distinguished visitors to the city; the corresponding departures can well be made by the residential highway itself, which displays the city to advantage. It is further proposed that the definite location of the airport be between the center of the city and the dam, so that incoming passengers will not have either to cross or go around it.

21 - As to the numbering of the houses, the point of reference should be the monumental axis, dividing the city into Northern and Southern halves. The superblocks would be known by numbers, the residential buildings by letters, and finally the apartments would be designated in the usual way, so that an address would read, for example, N-S3-L, apt. 201. The lettering of the buildings should be in relation to the entrance of the superblock, and run from left to right in the usual manner.

22 - There remains the problem of how to dispose of the land and make it accessible to private capital. I do not believe that the blocks should be sold in lots, and suggest that instead of selling off lots of land, the units should be sold in quotas, their value to be dependent upon the sector in which they are found and the standard building pattern for that site, in order not to confuse present planning or possible future remodeling of the squares internal layouts. I also believe that such planning should, by preference, precede sale of the land quotas, but on the other hand there is nothing to prevent purchasers of a substantial number of quotas in a square from submitting their own urbanization plan for it to the Company's approval; the Company itself, in addition to facilitating the purchase of quotas by corporations, could act to a large extent in the capacity of a corporate firm. The price of the quotas will of course vary according to demand, but should include, as I see it, a fixed sum to cover the expenses of the project. This will facilitate either the contracting of specific architects or the opening of competitions for the planning and construction of squares not handled by the Company's own Architectural Division. Finally, I suggest that approval of such projects should be in two stages: first the drafts and then the final versions, in order to permit preliminary selection and quality control of the constructions.

The same applies to the retail shopping center and the banking and liberal professions' -office districts, which should be planned prior to sale so that when divided into quotas they will fall into effective sub-sectors and autonomous units without harming the architectural integrity of the whole; these units could then be placed on the real estate market, and the construction of the buildings themselves, or part of the onus, could be financed by the interested parties or the Company; alternatively, financing could be arranged by agreement between both.

23 - To sum up, the solution presented is easy to understand, for it is characterized by the simplicity and clarity of the original design - which however does not exclude variety in the treatment of the component parts, as has already been shown. Each component has been conceived according to the nature of the function involved, and thus creating harmony between apparently contradictory needs. Thus, while monumental, the city is also comfortable, efficient, welcoming and intimate. It is at the same time spacious and neat, rustic and urban, lyrical and functional. Automobile traffic is processed without intersections, and the ground is returned, in so far as possible, to the pedestrian. And, because the framework is so clearly defined, it is easy to build: two axes, two terraces, one platform, two broad highways running in one direction, one superhighway in the other. The latter can be built in sections: first the central lanes with a clover-shaped turn-off on either side, then the lateral lanes, which could be built as the city spread; there would always be room for the bands of greenery bordering the highways. Initially, the residential superblocks would only be leveled off and scenically defined, and their surroundings planted immediately with grass and trees; inside them no paving of any king would be put down, nor any streets marked. Briefly then, we have an efficient highway system on the one hand, and on the other, landscaped parks and gardens.

Brasilia, aerial and highway capital, a garden city; the Patriarch's century-old dream.

This site was built by Augusto Cesar B. Areal.

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