Foreign Architecture in Brasilia

Abstract
Surprisingly, Brasilia has a major assortment of foreign architecture, due to the diplomatic complexes it houses in the so-called South and North Embassy Sectors. From an urban point of view, such sectors were envisioned as a great international fair of buildings by renowned professionals. These buildings display a variety of solutions, in which it is always possible to distinguish typical features of the country of origin. In many of them the intention to reflect the modernity of Brasilia prevails; in others, the main objective was to enhance the country’s traditional architecture; and finally there are those in which both alternatives have been harmonized.

Keywords
Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Brasilia modern architecture, World Heritage, Modern urban design, Modern diplomatic complexes.

Issue 43
Year 2010
Pages 48-51
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.52200/43.A.2MSEWSYB

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The Campus of the University of Brasilia

Abstract
The Pilot Plan of the new Brazilian Federal Capital, by Lúcio Costa, was selected in a public competition held in 1957. The city was inaugurated barely three years later by President Juscelino Kubitschek, in April 1960, when the official creation of the University of Brasilia became a reality. Preparing to celebrate fifty years of existence, the University campus probably represents the most accomplished set of Brutalist architecture in the country and an excellent sample of the inventive resources of Brazilian architects. A functionalist city inside another. They are distinct from each other, but both dignified and worthy of documentation and preservation actions.

Keywords
Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Brasilia modern architecture, World Heritage, Modern urban design, University of Brasilia Campus, Oscar Niemeyer, João Filgueira Lima, Brutalism.

Issue 43
Year 2010
Pages 44-47
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.52200/43.A.BZRPNMNN

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Brasilia. Monumentality Issues

Abstract
Lúcio Costa proposes an urbs and a civitas in his winning entry for the Brasilia competition (1957). The new seat of citizenship was to celebrate the March to the West dreamt by Brazilian Independence’s Patriarch José Bonifácio (1823) - who named the new capital - and taken up by president Juscelino Kubitschek (1955) - who promised fifty years of progress in five. Brasilia was to be a machine for remembering past, present and future hopes. Therefore, it had to be a memorable object itself, composed of memorable elements; differentiation from context counted in all levels. Like Costa, Oscar Niemeyer knew that common monumental features included volumetric simplicity, unusual size, scale or shape and extraordinary richness, as shown by his Palácio da Alvorada, the presidential residence (1956).

Keywords
Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Brasilia modern architecture, World Heritage, Modern urban design, Lúcio Costa, Brasilia Plan, Oscar Niemeyer, Alvorada Palace, Modern monumentality.

Issue 43
Year 2010
Pages 40-43
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.52200/43.A.DM9EB04A

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A Myth that Left the Greenhouse

Abstract
This is a selection of some writings by authors that visited, commented and analyzed Brasilia, collected mainly in non-Brazilian literature. Testimonies and judgments, most of them expressing mistrust, disbelief, disapproval and prejudice about the embryonic capital, and the change of the nature of the critique, looking to a complex city with half a century of existence. Quotations are presented in chronological order and in a dialectic array, contrasting points of views at distinctive moments of the city.

Keywords
Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Brasilia modern architecture, World Heritage, Modern urban design, Brasilia criticism.

Issue 43
Year 2010
Pages 34-39
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.52200/43.A.5JKUTVCA

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Modern and Traditional: Brasilia’s Paradigms

Abstract
By the 1950s, a shared culture spreading internationally through teaching and specialized literature became common currency in professional circles and gave rise to a repertoire of urban theories and practices. An examination of Lúcio Costa’s winning entry for the pilot plan of Brasilia attest to the existence of these paradigmatic formulae. Further more, not only was Brasilia a product of this culture, it grew to become itself archetypal. Yet, this high tide would be short-lived. In late 50s and early 60s, this veritable urban designer’s toolbox began to lose its legitimacy to become target of critical scrutiny.

Keywords
Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Brasilia modern architecture, World Heritage, Modern urban design, Lúcio Costa, Brasilia Plan.

Issue 43
Year 2010
Pages 26-33
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.52200/43.A.8JO4XZ5H

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Lúcio Costa and the Question of Monumentality in his Pilot Plan for Brasilia

Abstract
The urban design for Brasilia emphasizes the role of the city as a capital, that is to say, as an expression of State identity and power. Lúcio Costa considered monumentality as a characteristic inherent in urbanism, but this should not be achieved by any ostentatious grandiosity in terms of the volumes and sizes designed, and rather by providing a more singular external expression in the building concept used incorporating nature, capable of both pleasing and moving their occupants. The dimension of monumentality is a fundamental question in understanding the urban solution adopted in Brasilia.

Keywords
Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Brasilia modern architecture, World Heritage, Modern urban design, Lúcio Costa, Modern monumentality, Brasilia Plan.

Issue 43
Year 2010
Pages 22-25
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.52200/43.A.DMT9PCP3

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The Dislocation of Brazil’s Capital: a Long-Standing Project

Abstract
Dislocating the capital to Brazil’s interior highlands is a long standing project in the country’s history. The project was first linked to the transfer of the royal court from Lisbon to the Portuguese America, where a metropolis would be established in what until then had been a colonial purveyor of goods. Until 1953, the quest for a worthy capital involved many factors such as the establishment of a Portuguese empire in the Americas, Portugal’s repudiation of an Ancien Régime monarchy in the South Atlantic, the formation of a counter hegemony in a former colony, or the construction of a unified, republican, and modern Brazilian nation. As Lúcio Costa - the architect of the final iteration of Brazil’s new capital - once put it: “it was a century-old purpose, always postponed.”

Keywords
Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Brasilia modern architecture, World Heritage, Modern urban design, Brazil’s new capital, History of Brazil.

Issue 43
Year 2010
Pages 14-21
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.52200/43.A.NBSA4DND

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The Competition for Brasilia’s Pilot Plan: Territory and Infrastructure

Abstract
The Competition for Brasilia’s Pilot Plan, 1957, brought together 26 projects for the Federal Capital. These projects, expressing the planning culture of the first half of the twentieth century, contribute to a diverse knowledge of planning solutions. But what element unites these projects? The common factor to them is the urban structure based on two urban axes. The reason for this is the flat territory and the introduction of such infrastructure. A model of planning cities based on their minimum elements that not only organize, but also qualify the place.

Keywords
Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Brasilia modern architecture, World Heritage, Modern urban design, Brasilia Pilot Plan, Ideal city.

Issue 43
Year 2010
Pages 8-13
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.52200/43.A.WJL43ZGE

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Listing and Protecting the MoMo. Brazil/Brasilia

Abstract
Also in the field of preservation, Brazil has made an unparalleled contribution to the MoMo. After all, when in 1988 docomomo was founded, the country already had a number of modernist works legally protected. And Brasilia had joined the select World Heritage of UNESCO, the first modernist urban complex to be conferred that honor. The precedent was established, and since then other MoMo works - all prior to Brasilia - received the distinction: the Bauhaus in 1996, the Schröder House and the University of Caracas in 2000, the Tugendhat House in 2001, the White City of Tel Aviv in 2003.

Keywords
Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Brasilia modern architecture, World Heritage, Modern urban design, Protection of modern architecture, Documentation of modern architecture, Listing of modern architecture.

Issue 43
Year 2010
Pages 6-7
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.52200/43.A.L0L9Z1KH

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Brasilia 1960-2010: Modern Movement Universal Ideal

Abstract
Since Brasilia’s World Heritage inscription in 1987, the city has developed public awareness regarding the value of a major accomplishment in the history of urbanism. The singularity of Brasilia lies in its ability of being simultaneously rooted in the past while looking ahead to the future, envisioning an approach that should affirm Brazil’s industrialization effort and the need to provide access to life quality incorporating a specific genuine cultural tradition; an approach where the new capital should be the image of the homeland. Lúcio Costa, the architect who sensed and perceived the need to rescue architectural heritage, formulated unprecedented theoretical principles, articulating both realities. He was aware of the fact that modern architecture was a powerful means to foster a national identity because, according to modern principles argued in Brazil, a bond should exist between an erudite avant-garde and traditional popular features. Costa revealed the structural resemblance between raw architecture from the 18th Century - the plain Portuguese style - and the new constructions, discovering the same logic, rationality, rigor and strictness.

Keywords
Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Brasilia modern architecture, World Heritage, Modern urban design.

Issue 43
Year 2010
Pages 2-5
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.52200/43.A.P34H2K1C

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