CITY OR PARISH: DILEMMAS IN BRASILIA, BRAZILFrederico de Holanda

Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo, Universidade deBrasília

fredholanda4@gmail.com, phone numbers: + 55 61 34859824, +55 61 99861724

ABSTRACT

Surprisingly enough, neighbourhood unit related concepts have lasting appeal. This is the case concerning current controversies about the preservation plan of Brasilia, Brazil’s Federal Capital, as a World Cultural Heritage site. A proposal has been prepared by the Local Government,submitted to the Legislative Power, and widely publicised so that contributions from Civil Society might arise. On the one hand, the governmental proposal sticks to modernistic principles or urban design, considering individual buildings or city blocks in themselves, not in their relation with the surroundings. A piecemeal approach predominates, not one which is about the attributes and qualities of space between buildings, or of sets of blocks defining morphological urban types. On the other hand, outstanding speakers on behalf of Civil Society do not consider the city as a system, but rather as 1) a patchwork of isolated parts and 2) the sum total of, again, isolated dimensions, not a phenomenon which involves simultaneously practical and expressive aspects – functional, bioclimatic, economic and sociological, in the first case, imagistic, affective, symbolic and aesthetic, in the second. This paper explores the benefits of a systemic approach of the city – one that does not consider it a sum total of parishes nor of isolated disciplinary approaches.1

INTRODUCTIONAt the time of writing the draft of the Law Project

concerning the preservation of Brasilia as a World Cultural

Heritage Site (PPCUB) is pending in the Legislative Branch 1 Paper presented at the International Seminar on Urban Form - ISUF, Porto, Portugal, 2014.

1

of the Federal District Government, Brazil (SEDHAB, 2012).

The document deals with nearly two hundred articles. The

proposal includes consideration of the "surrounding areas",

which are also supposed to be controlled by interfering in

the landscape of the classified area.

The area is divided into eleven "conservation areas" (APs),

subdivided into 71 "conservation units" (PU) (the Section

2, about 45 acronyms used, indicates what lies ahead).

Along time, the monitoring of Brasilia by the State became

an endless maze of "NGB's" (the normative concerning the

templates for the various areas), almost one for each city

zone. The PPCUB would be the opportunity to reorder the

legal chaos of urban laws and make something clearer, to

devise legal documents as tools for achieving a better

urban landscape - for solving the structural problems of

the city, at least those related to configuration the

metropolis that are related to its classified core. Another

missed opportunity, like so many others in the history of

the Federal Capital of Brazil.

The most unfortunate aspect is that the intense debate on

the Plan that has occurred throughout 2013 between the

2

Executive and the Civil Society could not have been more

ideological, in the bad sense of the term: based on

appearances, ignoring systematic knowledge produced over

the city for decades; riddled with unacknowledged values

and doctrines that should have been long buried; a

parochial viewpoint that does not consider the measures in

the context of the city as a system, but rather as

interventions to supposedly solve specific problems.

Surely, the metropolitan problems cannot be solved by

interventions in the classified area. But at least some

interventions might be done here in order to contribute to the

balance of the system as a whole. There is no space in this

paper to review the guidelines for all areas of

preservation, least of all the units or preservation of the

surrounding areas. Some points illustrate how the

guidelines of the PPCUB ignore the city problems as

identified on several occasions and by many authors

(Paviani, 1985; Holanda, 2002, 2010, 2011).

3

THE SURROUNDING AREAS

Brasilia is a “tri-cephalous city” (Holanda, 2010). In order to

characterize the concept we propose three concepts for centre.

The cities have:

1) a functional centre, or the Central Business District (CBD), the

point around which concentrates the majority of jobs and

services;

2) a morphological centre, the most accessible point topologically,

i.e., the one at which ones gets with least number of turns on

average from all other points in the city, considered the road

system (this concept of accessibility arises from Space Syntax

Theory [Hillier and Hanson, 1984]);

3) a demographic Centre, the point that minimizes the average

distance per capita for the inhabitants of the metropolis,

considered the place of residence (say, the "centre of mass").

Brasilia is “tri-cephalous” because it organizes, in a

peculiar way, the relations between the three centralities.

The functional centre, around which 44.25% of the jobs of

the DF are located, locates in the immediate vicinity of

the intersection of two structural axes of the Pilot Plan -

the Monumental Axis and Road Axis. It is 10km away from the

morphological centre, towards southwest. The demographic 4

centre does not match the first nor the second (Figure 1).1

The separation of the three centralities in different

places - which does not happen in other Brazilian cities -

implies huge costs, particularly for the low-income

population condemned to use a public transportation system

of extreme bad quality.

Figure 1. Centralities in different places, a peculiarity of Brasilia

#

#

#

C E N TR O M O R FO LÓ G IC O

C B D - C R U ZA M E N TO D O S E IXO S

C E N TR O D E M A S S A 11,6 Km

10,3 Km

5,8 K

The morphological centre and the demographic centre are in AE 02

(Figure 2). The area is in the vicinities of the Park Road and

Supply Industry (EPIA), which defines the western limit of the

classified area (Figure 2). Along this road the land use has

changed radically in recent decades – a beautiful example of the

Law of Natural Movement, as suggested by Hillier et alli (1993):

5

the high accessibility of an urban area pulls to it intense

vehicular flows, which in turn attract central urban activities.

The development of any city results in centralities that move

along time. A universal phenomenon, the mere size of the city

implies new centres, though the historic centre rarely lose its

prominence – it has been so in Brazil, in cities like Rio de

Janeiro, São Paulo or Recife. As averages distances grow between

different parts of the cities, new centres create opportunities

for employment and services closer to homes.

An excellent opportunity to develop a new centrality of Brasilia

is the AE 02 and AE in 06a and 06b AE, also located along the

road called EPIA. The recent draft for the PPCUB recognizes the

potential, but this was removed from the draft after intense

debate between government gents and civil society

representatives. Unfortunately, the discussion was intensely

ideological. No details are known from the plan so far, but it

is known that the Executive's proposal repeats the worst

problems of modern urbanism: there would be a "job sector"

isolated from the dwellings; the "housing sector" would be a

homogeneous neighbourhood for the middle class, not a mixed

income area. On the other hand, the critical reaction is not

concerned with these problems, but with the fact that such a new

urban will eventually aggravate traffic problems in the region.

6

Land use and mobility are not thought of as both variables in

the equation; no thoughts are dedicated to the fact that a new

centrality requires new patterns of mobility, especially in

Brasilia, where eventually the current standards – based in the

private car – will have to be revised.

But the reaction of Civil Society against the expansion area

hides something more, not just mobility issues: it masks the

ideology of apartheid, whereby a cordon sanitaire must continue to

isolate as much as possible the metropolitan core - the master

plan designed by Lucio Costa – from the rest of the metropolis.

By political opportunism, the State withdrew the proposal.

Eventually it will return: another example, among others, to

illustrate the trend, also in Brasilia, towards a more compact

city, despite the isolationist desires of the upper classes who

inhabit the central areas of the metropolis.

Among the considerations about urban expansions, there are no

comments on built heights based on clear criteria for the

visibility of the classified area and its main buildings may be

defined (white area in the centre of Figure 2). In AE06B, in the

same figure, nothing built with less than 100 meters in height

will be seen from the classified area. We would not even have

something similar to La Défense (Paris), the extension of the

Champs Élysées, where the problem is not the height of the

7

skyscrapers, but the poor public they define (Figure 3). These

sites of the surrounding spots of the classified area are

valuable resources for the metropolitan development, a

potentiality so far ignored by both State and Civil Society.

Figure 2. Surrounding areas of the site declared World Cultural

Heritage. (Source: <www.sedhab.df.gov.br/>.)

Figure 3. La Défense (Paris)

8

THE MONUMENTAL AXIS

The Monumental Axis is the strongest structural element in

Brasilia, the morphological unit responsible for the emblematic

symbolic character of the city. It spans nearly 9km, from its

eastern end at the Square of the Three Powers to Road-train

Station, at the western end. In the PPCUB it is the AP 1

(preservation area 1), which is divided into six UPs (Units of

Preservation, Figure 4). Except for the Buriti Square, in which

the headquarters of the local government locates, all areas are

considered as "consolidated" urban bits. However, it is

recognized that: 1) a complementation of the Esplanade of

Ministries is needed, with buildings that would support service

activities which are complementary to the public jobs therein

located (by the way, after the original proposal of Lucio

Costa’s, never implemented) (Costa, 1996); 2) the occupation of

9

the final tract to the west should be intensified, one which

extends from the Buritis Square to the Road-train Station (AP1,

UP6), with institutional, "cultural, recreational and sports"

activities, and the provision of services. The proposal was also

withdrawn from the draft.

10

Figure 4. Units of preservation (UPs) of the Area of Protection 1

(AP1). (Source: <www.sedhab.df.gov.br/>.)

Note the fact that the perimeter of the morphological units (in

this case, the Units of Preservation) coincides with the axis of

the neighbouring roads (except for the Buriti Square). As in

good modern guidelines, no consideration is paid to spaces which

we traverse, and which we read, in fact, as morphological units

that should be the object of attention; after all, according the

modernistic rules, routes obey perform the exclusive function of

circulation – they are not considered as places for stay,

leisure and encountering other people.

11

To consider the streets as simple tools for vehicular

circulation results - again – in the disregard for the bordering

buildings. The configuration of the Monumental Axis should

necessarily be differentiated according to its tracts,

especially in a city that excels in many ways, e.g. by clear

space/built volumes relations. No, today the occupation of urban

block edges is random, and no discussion about it is present in

the draft. Along the borders of the Monumental Axis there is

everything: buildings 65m in height in hotel sectors; empty

parking lots of big facilities, such as the Mane Garrincha

Football Stadium or Nielson Nelson Gym; the palaces of the

Buriti Square; single family residences in the Urban Military

Sector and Cruzeiro Velho neighbourhood etc. Each new demand

that arises comes with ad hoc definitions for the built types

concerned and does not relate to the configuration of the place

in which they locate (something that is done so well in the

Esplanade of Ministries).

12

In the areas which are considered as "consolidated", but which

nevertheless present many empty spaces, some occupation is

proposed, e.g. plots of land "between 10.000m2 and 20.000m2".

However, no criteria for their number, location and

configuration are offered. This is particularly the case of the

rectangular grassy central area 2,500m long by 170m (the western

tract, UP6, Figure 4), in which there is only a religious

building. As long as they keep the predominantly bucolic

character of the park, the space should be marked by occasional

edifices. This new visual stimuli would strengthen the image of

the city is this area (and contribute for the image of the city

as a whole), which is now mostly deserted with no justifiable

reasons for that – practical or expressive. However, such

occupation was considered by sections of Civil Society as simply

reflected the greed of the builders for more and more built

areas. Ideology revisited.

THE CENTRAL SECTORS

In the central and densest areas of the Pilot Plan

discontinuities proliferate, as well as paths to be traversed by

pedestrians in long stretches which are devoid of activity -

paths in the middle of nowhere. Even more so than in projects

dated from the classical period of modern urbanism (1960s),

13

spaces defined by blank walls abound, or buildings are designed

in introverted schemes, as in the North Commercial Sector, which

dates from the late 1980s onwards, Figure 5): activities open to

the interior of the edifices and there are few openings relating

internal spaces and the public, open space realm of the city.

Huge voids that did not exist in the plan have never been

occupied with buildings (Figure 6). Morphological concerns about

space for public life are absent from PPCUB. Patterns and

indices proposed in the plan do not refer to urban space but to

buildings seen in isolation: Article 63 lists five of them, all

referring to space inside the borders of the plots. Concerns for

the quality or public urban space are simply absent, except as

general recommendations in respect to urban furniture, trees

etc. One might fear the proposal for an increase in buildings

height in the hotel sectors, where buildings are only two

stories high today - eventually it will happen, and this is not

bad, for nothing justifies such a low dense occupation in such a

central area. But, as before, the point is not simply increasing

building heights and occupation ratios, but configuring the

public sphere in a better way.

Figure 5. North Commercial Sector, Brasília

14

Figure 6. Unpredicted void between Amusement Sectors North and South

THE “LABYRINTH OF THE DESERT”

The AP 07 and AP 08 comprise the low-occupancy areas east of the

residential wings of the Pilot Plan. These are areas in which

there is a proliferation of the remnants of one of the two

typical "labyrinths" of modern urbanism, the "labyrinth of the

desert", dominated by the "far": major morphological

discontinuities, with few or no visual stimuli on a smaller

scale, impairing readability and urban orientability. (The

15

second “labyrinth” is the “labyrinth of the walls”, in which, on

the contrary, we see only “near”, the place lacks global

references [Borges, 2009].) It is almost unbelievable that the

photograph in Figure 7 shows a point of great centrality in the

metropolis, immediately to the north of the Esplanade of

Ministries. To the South of the Monumental Axis the problem

repeats itself: there are numerous stretches of "no man's land"

between the blocks of embassies. Here, low-density occupation

comes hand in hand with a labyrinthine road system, which makes

it extremely difficult to find an address.

Figure 7. The “labyrinth of the desert”, immediately North to the

Esplanade of Ministries

If the "labyrinth of the desert" abounds in the bucolic scale,

open public spaces on the lakeshore should be more generous.

This relates to an original sin of the project. Lucio Costa

16

admitted the privatization of the waterfront, but not as much as

it happened: "only sports clubs , restaurants, places for

leisure, tourist hotels and fishing nuclei may reach the water's

edge" (Costa, 1996). However, admitting privatization of such

places contrasts with Brazilian tradition of keeping spaces as

the ones bordering water bodies (rivers, lakes, sea) as public

areas (in contrast with the European or North American

tradition). The precedent thus created ended up making a rule of

what should have been an exception. In addition to clubs and

restaurants, convention centres emerged, "multiplex" movie

centres with food courts, gyms and luxury apartments, less and

less disguised as hotels. The PPCUB proposes the de-

privatization of the waterfront, but only provides the legal

standard preservation of a strip thirty meters wide along the

waterfront. Such strips should me more generous. There are still

good stretches to (re)gain for the common citizen.

CONCLUSION: AN INCOMPLETE PAROCHIAL TREND

The PPCUB is a “piecemeal world”; furthermore, it is highly

incomplete. Besides the fact that it does not address the main

issues at the macro-structural level of the metropolis (this is

desirable and feasible) the document lacks attention to the

local level. Architectural and urban literature abounds in

17

suggestions concerning decent spaces for a healthy public life,

particularly in cities’ central areas. Since the pioneering work

of Kevin Lynch (1960) and Jane Jacobs (1961) – let alone Camillo

Sitte (1889) – many authors have contributed to such issues:

Christopher Alexander et alli (1977), Bill Hillier and Julienne

Hanson (1984), Alan Jacobs and Donald Appleyard (1987), the

people belonging to the movement Project for Public Spaces (2005),

Andrés Duany and the Congress for the New Urbanism (1993), Jan Gehl

(2006), and many others. Some summarizing examples illustrate

what is missing the PPCUB: the amount and shape of space

compared to the total urban area (too much free space is

occupied only in exceptional circumstances, not in the daily

life of the city); the average size of morphological units of

open space, particularly the width of the streets, damaging an

appropriate scale of the places in between built façades, so

that we might have good visibility and recognition of other

people; variety, complementarity and distribution of activities

in time, related to a vital urban space; the occurrence of

housing in central areas, a proper distribution of various built

types and densities, that would provide for a greater

concentration of people; design at a micro scale, concerning the

street space, and taking into account accessibility issues,

priority to pedestrians, cyclists, and public transport etc.;

18

the small size of the blocks, facilitating movement across city

parts, particularly in central areas; the "constitution" of

places, i.e. frequent direct transitions between inside and

outside, but also numerous windows (the "eyes on the street"),

avoiding one of the most perverse attributes of modern urbanism

etc.

The PPCUB reproduces the classic modern view of the city: the

objects of attention are the sectors of the city or the isolated

buildings. Rules never relate to the spaces in between built

volumes, the attention is concentrated in the indices within

plots. Rules are related to "conservation units" whose

boundaries are important arterial roads which, however, are not

the object of attention as defined by bordering built volumes -

or else, we find the great error of defining a pathway itself,

independently from what surrounds it, as a “unit of

preservation”. Surely, the normative maintains built heights in

accordance with the "scales" of the city – namely the

morphological types that constitute Brasilia’s configuration:

taller in the urban centre, lower the residential wings, with

larger open spaces in the Civic Centre etc. It is not enough. In

all areas, morphological problems continue to haunt the city as

unburied ghosts.

19

The PPCUB is the exemplary translation, in a legal document, of

the hegemony of modern urbanism, rightly criticized in many

places on the world for the damage it has caused to spaces for

public life. In Brasilia, it continues to reign sovereign. Some

people think that maintaining the essential qualities of the

city depends on the reproduction of modern orthodox principles.

On the contrary, the essential qualities of Brasilia do not

relate to its modern character. They stem from the attributes

that makes the qualities of cities of all times, particularly in

its expressive dimensions: a strong identity, a clear

readability of its parts and their interconnection as a system

(à la Lynch), a unique beauty, a configuration that fulfils its

role as a symbol of nationality etc. Problems, on the other

hand, do relate to modern principles: the city-for-all-people,

in which a same built type would be suitable to every class, has

proved a myth; the superblock buildings are constituted by flats

which imply a lot of money to buy and to maintain them; strong

physical barriers impose heavy burden for pedestrians; mobility

patterns are compatible with the private car, not with public

transport; bio-climatically, the city is comfortable within

sectors (or superblocks), very uncomfortable outside them (or in

between them).

20

Brasilia was not been declared World Cultural Heritage for

“historical” reasons, nor because it is “original”, nor because

it represents a certain architectural movement and a certain

epoch. Certainly, circumstantial reasons appear in the texts of

its classification as a heritage site. However, does this

actually underlies the classification, or is it an ideological

discourse, blind to the essential qualities of the city? If

circumstances come to the fore, are we not “degrading an

aesthetic appreciation to a historical assessment” (Cicero,

2012)? Brasilia is worth not because Lucio Costa is among the

first to do something, but because he is among the best; not

because he makes things anew, but because he makes things that

do not get old.

Solving impending problems depends on thinking systemically about

the city, not about its isolated bits – not parochially. Solving

its problems is to free the city from the perverse circumstances

in which it was created.

The PPCUB is, again, a lost opportunity.

REFERENCES

ALEXANDER, C.; ISHIKAWA, S.; SILVERSTEIN, M. (1977) A pattern Language

(Oxford University Press, New York).

21

BORGES, Jorge Luis (2009) ‘Os dois reis e os dois labirintos’, in

BORGES, Jorge Luis O Aleph (Editora Schwarcz LTDA, São Paulo) 122-123.

CICERO, Antonio (2012) Poesia e filosofia (Civilização Brasileira, Rio de

Janeiro).

CONGRESS FOR THE NEW URBANISM (1993) Charter for the New Urbanism

(http://www.cnu.org/charter) accessed 25 May 2014.

COSTA, Lucio (1995) Lucio Costa: registro de uma vivência (Empresa das Artes,

São Paulo).

GEHL, J. (2006) Life between buildings: using public space (The Danish

Architectural Press, Copenhagen).

HILLIER, Bill et alli. (1993) ‘Natural movement: or, configuration and

attraction in urban pedestrian movement’, Environment and Planning B: Planning

and Design 20, 29-66.

HILLIER, Bill; HANSON, Julienne (1984) The Social Logic of Space (Cambridge

University Press, Cambridge).

HOLANDA, Frederico de (ed.) (2011) Arquitetura e Urbanidade (FRBH, Brasília).

HOLANDA, Frederico de (2010) Brasília - cidade moderna, cidade eterna (FAU UnB,

Brasília).

HOLANDA, Frederico de (2002) O espaço de exceção (Editora Universidade de

Brasília, Brasília).

HOLANDA, Frederico de (2011) Oscar Niemeyer: De vidro e concreto / Of glass and

concrete (FRBH, Brasília).

22

HOLANDA, Frederico de, TENORIO, Gabriela (2010) ‘Brasilia:

informalidad en los intersticios del orden dominante, in X CONGRESO

INTERNACIONAL DE REHABILITACIÓN DEL PATRIMONIO ARQUITECTÓNICO Y

EDIFICACIÓN (CICOP, Santiago).

JACOBS, A.; APPLEYARD, D. (1987) ‘Toward an Urban Desing Manifesto’,

Journal of the American Planning Association (112-120).

JACOBS, Jane (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Random House, New

York).

LYNCH, Kevin (1960) The image of the city (The MIT Press, Harvard).

PAVIANI, Aldo (ed.) (1985) Brasília, Ideologia e Realidade. Espaço Urbano em Questão

(Projeto Ed., São Paulo).

PROJECT FOR PUBLIC SPACES (2005) How to turn a place around - A handbook for

creating successful public spaces (Project for Public Spaces, Nova York).

SEDHAB. Plano de Preservação do Conjunto Urbanístico de Brasília. Available in: <www.sedhab.df.gov.br/>. Access: 31st May 2012.

SITTE, Camillo (1992) A construção das cidades segundo seus princípios artísticos

(Editora Ática S. A., São Paulo.

Keywords: Brasilia, preservation policies, architectural ideology,

conflicting interests

Conference theme: ii. Urban morphological methods and techniques

23

1 Figure 1 shows part of the road axes of Brasilia municipality, where the three centres of this “tri-cephalous” city locate. The axial map comes from Space Syntax Theory. The warmer the colours (tending to red), the more accessible are the roads to the system as a whole.