Brasilia: the frontier capital

Pergamon S0264-2751(96)00016-9 Cities, Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 273-280, 1996

Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved

0264-2751/96 $15.00 + 0.00

Viewpoint

Brasilia: the frontier capital

Isabel Maria Madaleno Universidade da Beira Interior, Departamento de Sociologia e Comunicaff~o Social, R. Marqu& d'A vila e Bolama, 6200 Covilhgl, Portugal

Brasilia was the hope for a new Brazilian era of economic development and integration of the interior. Therefore, the city was planned to become the model town of modernity. However, urban spaces were devised to control mass riots and the streets were replaced by freeways. So, when poor landless families migrated towards the frontier town, hoping for better living conditions and job opportunities, they were denied entrance to Brasilia's "airplane". The frontier city brought some hopeful people to the interior of Brazil, but gave them little more than symbolic shapes and monumental buildings. Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution of a single frontier settlement. Previous studies of frontier urbanization display different research perspectives and focus on regions in- stead of particular towns (Brown et al, 1994). Brasilia is unique, and yet uni- versal. Rapid population growth in settled southeastern areas and the need to explore frontier resources had led to the conception of this new interior Brazilian capital, in the '60s. This paper explores the roots of its modernist urban planning, and the processes by which its provisions were applied to the urban landscape of Bra- zil. A second theme lies in the close relationship which existed between the concerns of urban planning and the emergence of socio-economic segregation within the Federal Capital District's borders.

Historical record

In 1960 a new town was planted on every map of the biggest country in Latin America, Brazil. The name, Brasilia, placed in the interior of a federation with continental dimen- sions, could be nothing else than the

capital of Hope (Ribeiro, 1980), de- termining the rise of a new era of development, peace and prosperity for Brazilians.

In fact this was their third capital since the discovery of Brazil by Portu- guese navigator Cabral, in 1500. In the beginning of colonization Salvador (Bahia-BA, see Fig. 6) was built to polarize commerce between sugar plantations in the northeast area and the European metropolis, Lisbon. La- ter on, when mineral resources were discovered in the southeast and the coffee plantations of Silo Paulo pro- vince (SP) replaced the old sugar plantations, based on slavery and manor domination (Freyre, 1992), the capital was moved to southern Rio de Janeiro (1763). But the territorial ex- pansion of this adventurous people continued and in the 19th century when independence from Portugal was proclaimed (1822), it was already evident that strategies to integrate the wider interior areas were desirable. So, from the beginning of the republic in 1889 up to the popular dictatorship of Vargas (1930M5), Brazilian con- stitutions and politicians endorsed bills to study, plan and build a new interior capital. Yet not a single president, and the dictator even less so,

took the responsibility, nor the heavy burden, of making roads through the cerrado (savanna) of the remote high- lands.

Finally, in 1955, the newly elected president Juscelino Kubitschek faced up to the issue of the new capital and firmly supported the idea that Brazil could never be a modern and progres- sive country while centred only on the overpopulated littoral strip. Brazilians should seek interior resources, estab- lish new settlements in the central and northern territories, and the southeastern polarized industrial capital should re-direct its emphasis in order to conquer a wider market and hence promote the integration of the whole country.

In 1975, Kubi tschek published "Why did I build Brasilia?" He assumed the new capital as his personal achievement before, during and af- ter its construction, having nominated his friend Niemeyer, the architect, for the u n i q u e task of concep t ion . Together they wrote and drew the guidelines of a Polls, but also of a civitas, and in spite of the emergence of a legal and national contest, neces- sary to legitimate design and imple- ment an urban plan, they were aware not only of the difficulties of such an

273

Viewpoint

Figure 1 Niemeyer designed the famous Congress building, Brasilia's ex-libris. In order to enhance it he placed the structure in the centre of the field. Other parade buildings like the Ministries were aligned in military parade.

enterprise, but also of their own very concrete ideas about this new capital (Niemeyer, 1961). Hence, Lucio Cos- ta, Niemeyer's old professor and spe- cialist from the Brazilian modernist school, was elected to shape their utopia.

"Brasil ia could never be a city like any other", the president wrote (Kubitschek, 1975, p 62). It had to be a model city, beautiful and monumental, innovative in architecture and urbanism; whilst a single occupation town, it should be, above all, organized and green, an alternative town drawn to preserve a better quality of urban environment, free from pollution and stress, where working and living would be compatible (Fig. 1).

In o r d e r to convince the yet- reluctant intelligentsia, the process of giving birth to Brasilia was accompa- nied by careful archival excavation of all the political speeches, literature suggestions, as well as cultural move- ments that throughout Brazilian His- tory "explained people's desire" to move the capital from the coastal dream city Rio de Janeiro to 'nowhere land ' (Pres id~ncia da Rep~bl ica , 1960). And on the 21st of April 1960 Brasilia was born.

The planned city The new capital was planned for a maximum population size of 600 000

people. It was drastically determined that when this threshold was reached the town's capacity would be en- dangered in terms of life quality; so its growth should be stopped. Urban residents were seen as mobile human beings, therefore highway axes were introduced as basic elements of the city's skeleton. As we can see in Fig. 2, two main avenues intersecting in a Holy Cross fashion signaled simul- taneously the "primary gesture of ( . . . ) place possession" (Costa, 1991, p 20) and the symbolic blessing of the new se t t lement . The biggest axis was adapted to local topography. An amphitheatre slowly projected on the city stage one of the most extraordinary achievements of Brazil's technolo- gy, the artificial lake of Paranofi (Lago do Paranofi). This way the city plan showed extraordinary resemblance to an airplane suggesting that, more than to religion or domination, the new capital was an elegy to progress, to modernity, the city of the future where history should be re-written.

All this symbolism was developed into very concrete rules and directives in order to regulate economic activity, traffic, life itself within the new town, namely:

(1) no mixing of living and working areas would be allowed. In this sense employment was concentrated in the shortest east-west axis (elxo monumental), directed to the lake, meaning

in the "body of the plane". People should live on the wings, the maximum distance from their tip to the centre being only 5 miles: Further- more they would have access to their daily duties by one high-speed axis (eixfio) or two medium-speed axes (L2 and W3).

(2) Moreover , dominant tert iary activities should be organized, in a fashion that permitted efficiency and control over space. In the cockpit of the plane were the ministries, aligned in military parade in an enormous green avenue and very clearly identi- fied; then stood the Three Powers Square constituted by the National Congress, the Federal Supreme Court (Fig. 4) and the Planalto Palace (site of the executive power). Further on, by the lake shore, emerged the Alvor- ada Palace, the official presidential residence, one of the outstanding buildings in Brasilia, in fact the first projected by Niemeyer in the new capital. This was the conception of the State Center, the citadel designed to command, protect and dominate the surrounding urban population (Soja, 1989) and furthermore to promote social control, to exercise political admi- nistrhtion and ideological surveillance of its hinterland.

Back to the intersection of the two main axes (see Fig. 2), a four-level structure constitutes the bus terminal, together with information booth, bars,

274

f /

..2"

,\

\\

_

\ <

{ "-

.-

Figu

re 2

B

rasi

lia-

-Pla

no P

iloto

C

~ ",)£ ..

..

• r

/

\\ c~eo

oo

WAr

ASO

a"

\\ \, \

/J~j

/ /s /,

/

S' i' ,/ jr'\

,/J

( /

........ ?~

......

/

,/r

J /

, (' y"

J ;'

...~N

•] S

ul~r

biod

<s

~-

Fre

ew

ay

s,

roac

ls

~-~

R

ailw

ay

SL

S

~e

s

Se

cto

r

So

uth

E~v~

l /~

drds

~ies

i ,,!

Viewpoint

cities:

Figure 3

bz

s o

c(

gm

sm

\ m high income groups

middle income groups paved road

c

I : ~ low income groups ( ~ lakes - . : path

b / ~ gu

InAs ~ .~/~,/

Planned segregation in Brazil's Federal Capital District

\ &

pl~___.~. "~. . .

restaurants , souvenirs shops, post office, telephones and waiting rooms. From there westwards, space zoning is "complete and clearly evident. The "plane body" is divided into commercial areas, fun city sectors, hotel areas, radio and TV, banking, sports, administrative, cultural, military and even an extensive embassies' sector. This zoning was conceived to be exclusive, meaning that hotels would only be allowed in the hotel sectors, north or south, and nowhere else. The whole area, mainly located west of the big axis (eixho) was the so-called Civic Center (Holanda, 1985) where modernist planning permitted supervision and total state control over produc- tion, consumption and the terms of exchange.

(3) As to the residential areas, the wings were divided into big squares, called superblocks, where only 8-11 buildings were allowed to develop, no higher than 6 floors, built to house about 3000 people each. The superblocks were projected to contain play- grounds, clubs, sports grounds, as well

as small shops (bakery, butchery, pharmacy, garments) and small super- markets situated in local commercial areas, in this way permitting "bedside shopping" (Spilhaus, 1971). Every four superblocks constituted a "Neigh- bourhood Unit", an original modernist solution, with its own primary schools , churches , e n t e r t a i n m e n t areas. The layout of the residential blocks within each superblock could vary, but they all had to obey the basic pattern of an open ground floor with upper stories supported by pillars, each building clearly separated from the others and oriented to sunlight, wind and other climatic considerations, not the road.

(4) Total separation of means of circulation and pedestrians was the basic element of this urban planning concept, each superblock having a unique and highly control led car entrance, narrow streets with the sole objective of permitting underground garage parking, the above-ground parking lots being exceptions. Simul- taneously, paths and foot thorough-

fares were designed according to the creators' ideas about pedestrians' needs. Each superblock would be insu- lated from the surrounding automotive circulation axes by trees, lawn and hedges to minimize noise and air pollution. As great modernist theoretician Le Corbusier wrote:

urban residents need a quantum of silence, fresh air, and greenery (...) in order to live and work in harmony [Le Corbusier, 1984, p 67].

In summary, Brasilia was planned to become the model town of modernity.

H o w utopia m e t real i ty

Space is "ideologically charged" as it has been stressed by some geographers (Lac6ste, 1976; Soja, 1989; Santos, 1990-). Strange as it may seem, the new capital was conceived as a socialist town, promoting equal opportunities for everybody, as every citizen would occupy a similar space, in similar buildings, in simular superblocks and

276

Viewpoint

Figure 4 Modernist architecture displays columns, marble, concrete, glass; geometry and symmetry were synonyms of harmony

Figure 5 Brazilian architect Niemeyer was particularly brilliant devising the Cathedral

so on. Many authors emphasize this issue (Holston, 1989) maximizing the role of Oscar Niemeyer, a well known communist. In reality, the socialization of the residential space was directly related to the modernist conception of urbanism and architecture (Figs 4, 5). Besides, the Brazilian economy was never marxist; Brazilian society has always been highly stratified, divided according to consumptive power as well as by cultural considerations.

The first amendment to the plan was made by the upper class lobby: a strip of urban land, along the shore of the lake, where they could enjoy the

best view and the most beautiful scen- ery (see Fig. 3). Those areas were planned to be the insulating belt of parks, forests and hobby farms surrounding the city. However, it was argued that they could easily be occupied by a mass of poor landless families (os sem-terra) whose misbehaviour and political action could happen close to the state centre. Moreover, they could be a force in opposition to the centre of Federal Administrat ion, to the presidency itself. Hence legislation was introduced to promote the urbanization of the so-called "lakes" (Lago Norte and Lago Sul) where numerous

houses and mansions were estab- lished.

What about the poor landless indi- viduals? In reality the city was not for them. That was stated and written clearly (Silva, 1971; Costa, 1974; Kubitschek, 1975). The hopes were that, once a multitude of uneducated and unskilled city builders finished their job they would leave. Un- doubtedly that was not their wish. In 1958 the first struggles for land and housing started. The solution found by local authorities was to relocate them somewhere far away from Brasilia (Fig. 3), at Taguatinga, (an Indian

277

Viewpoint

Table 1 The origin of Brazil's Federal Capital District population, in 1957 and 1980

State/region 1957 (%) 1980 (%)

Federal district (df) - 32.0 Golfis (GO) 50.2 10.4

Centre-western region 55.3 43.0 Minas Gerals (MG) 18.4 14.6 Rio de Janeiro (RJ) 0.8 5.3 Sao Paulo (SP) 7.8 2.5

Southeastern region 27.3 23. l Ceara (CE) - 6.1 Bahia (BA) - 5.7 Piaui (P) - 5.3 Paraiba (pb) - 4.1 Maranh~o (MA) - 3.9 Pernambuco (pe) - 2.9

Northeastern region 10.3 30.8 Southern region 2.0 1.7 Northern region 0.7 1.1

Unknown origin 4.4 0.3

Brazilians 99.8 99.2 Foreigners 0.2 0.8

Population (thousands) 12.7 1198.1

Source: Compiled by author from Population Census, 195%80.

word for white land) 16 miles west of the capital. But why? Brasilia was still raw, under construction, not fully occupied. The reality was that the capital of Hope could not be inhabited by illiterate, powerless and hungry people. The city was being built to house federal admin i s t ra t ion . It should house the power, not the common people. But how to work these considerations into a modernist town, that could act like a machine, whose aim would be equal space for its inhabitants? How to justify this out- rageous behaviour in a capital of Hope, in site of the dawn of a new Brazilian era of progress and industrial development?

Here utopia was obviously doomed, overwhelmed by social realities the creators should never have denied in the first place, especially because they could not solve them. With time, more and more Brazilians arrived from far distant rural areas, small cities or even big towns (see Table 1). Brasilia had no capacity to give them shelter. Moreover, depending on the newcom- ers' status, the capital's administrative machine did not even wish to house them. If they belonged, if they had relevant work or ministerial functions and if they had money, they could hope to stay either inside the "airplane" or on the eastern lake shore

houses. If they did not belong or had little money they could only expect to stay somewhere in a satellite town. In 1994 Brasilia had about 12 satellite towns and settlements from 7.5 miles (Guar~i) up to 33 miles (Brazl~ndia) away from the mother city (Fig. 3). In the centre, Brasilia, were 51% of the jobs but the Federal Capital had only 16% of the District's population.

This socio-economic apartheid (Buarque, 1991) has apparently not generated a significant wave of pro- test. Spatial segregation is a common feature of all other Brazilian towns as a result of a highly stratified society. But unlike big metropolises, such as S~o Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, the struggle for space and better living conditions is still a sort of abnormal behaviour within the federal capital borders. As Crush wrote about apartheid in South Africa, "struggles shape space; space shapes struggle" (Crush, 1992, p 23). Brasilia's space was devised to control mass riots, to prevent major protests. It is a space of objects, of monolitical architectural forms where each building is a function and a commitment to the set of polygons that shape the town. The capital is a machine for living in, where people are passive receptors. In this way the city planners denied history and cul- ture by forgetting that their town

would be occupied by people with their own ideas, volitions, habits and personal history.

T o w a r d s a c o n c l u s i o n

In 1950 Brazil had 51 944 397 inhabitants (IBGE, 1950) (Fig. 6). The interior of the country where the new capital is situated today was occupied by 1 inhabitant/square mile, while in the southeastern littoral strip there were about 40 people/square mile. In 1991 the Federation reached 150 000 000 (IBGE, 1991). Inner densities increased to 10.4 inhabitants/square mile, whilst the Brazilian Federal Capital District was already showing a comfortable density of 550 inhabitants/square mile in 1991. Moreover, the federal capital is now the home of about 1 600 000 people, which places Brasilia in the sixth place among its fellow Brazilian metropolises. In addition, several main national roads were built during this period, giving the capital access to the north, west, east and south directions dictated by the pre-existing inner or coastal towns and settlements, the most remarkable being the Bel6m (PA)-Brasilia's (dr) 1375 miles, with a section through the Amazonian forest, completed in 1960.

If the '60s and '70s saw crescentic centre-westward migrations, the '80s were the years of heading north, mainly to the states of Rond6nia (RO) and Amaz6nia (AM). Yet, most Brazilians continue to live in littoral states. The proportion of residents in the northern and west-central interior regions is only 12%.

Consequently, the frontier capital has not succeeded fully in promoting the economic development of the vast interior, even though its construction and the settlement of the federal administration gave some impetus to population redistribution.

It was hoped that Brasilia, conceived to be unique with its large angular building shapes; designed to be without congested freeways and busy roads in residential areas; zoned to possess segregated working areas; and intended as a whole to convey a distinctive mood within its isolating green belts, would be a starting point for the Brazilian nation. One might

278

Viewpoint

BRAZIL: STATES AND GEOGP,~PHIC REGIONS

CII I I l M "

MT

30

"B'A

• NOKgHERN REGION

[ I - - F ~ 5OL,q'H-EASTERN REGION

--~ SOUIHERN REGION

M$

~ j

p

Figure 6

AP - Ama~i ~ -- Maranl~o se - Serglpe

RR- l~alma CE - Ce.az,i P -

AM - Axnaz{~a BA - Bahia NiT - Mato Grosso

AC - A a e m - Rio C_#ande. Norte MS - N~ato Oosso Sol RO - Rond(~la pb - Paralba C_~ - C_~&s PA - Par~t pc: - Pernambuco df - DIsU. Fed~al

I T - Tocantlns al - Alasoas, M G - Minas C_.~als

Brazilian Federation

only comment that the eventual pro- duct brought little more than human isolation and social segregation.

the capital of Brazil, my Ph.D. Thesis main subject.

A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s

I wish to thank D. Myburgh (Universi- ty of the Western Cape, South Africa) for c o m m e n t i n g on an ear l ier draf t of this paper . A. Paviani (Brasi l ia Uni - versity, Brazil) and E . G . Za rza (Sala- m a n c a Univers i ty , Spain) for the i r advice and suggest ions while s tudying

References

Brown, L A, et al (1994) 'Urban-system evolution in frontier settings' The Geographical Review, 84 249-265.

Costa, L (1991) Brasilia, Cidade que lnven- tel, GDF, Brasilia.

Costa, L (1974) I Seminario de Estudos dos Problemas Urbanos de Brasilia, Senado Federal, Brasilia.

Crush, J (1992) 'Beyond the frontier' in

SP- S~o Paulo

R] - Rio de ]aneho

ES - E~otrlto Santo

PR- Paxar~ 5(2 - Santa Catar lna

RS - Rio Grande d o

Sul.

Rogerson, C and McCarthy, J (Eds) Geography in a Changing South Africa: Progress and Prospects pp 10-37, Ox- ford, Cape Town.

Freyre, G (1992) Casa-Grande e Senzala, Record, Rio de Janeiro.

Holanda, F (1985) 'A morfologia interna da capital' in Paviani, A (Ed.) Brasilia, Espaqo Urbano em Quest~o, pp 135- 160, CNPq, Brasilia.

Holston, J (1989) The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique o f Brasilia, Chicago, Chicago.

IBGE (1950) Censo Demogr~fico, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatfstica, Rio de Janeiro.

279

Viewpoint

IBGE (1957) Censo Experimental, Institu- to Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatfstica, Rio de Janeiro.

IBGE (1980) Censo Dernogrdfico, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatlstica, Rio de Janeiro.

IBGE (1991) Sinopse Preliminar do Censo Demogrdlfico, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatfstica, Rio de Janeiro.

Kubitschek, J (1975) Por Que Construi Brasilia, Bloch, Rio de Janeiro.

Lac6ste, Y (1976) La G(ographie, ¢a sert, d'abord, ~ faire la guerre. Maspero, Paris.

Le Corbusier (1984) Planejamento Urbano, Perspectiva, Sao Paulo.

Niemeyer, O (1961) Minha Experi6ncia em Brasilia, Vit6ria, Rio de Janeiro.

Presid6ncia da Reptiblica (19601 Antece- dentes Hist6ricos, PR, Brasilia.

Ribeiro, G S L (19811) 'A capital da esper- anqa', Master's Thesis, Brasilia (unpub-

lished). Santos, M (1990) Por Uma Geografia

Nova, Hucitec, Sho Paulo. Soja, E W (1989) Postmodern Geogra-

phies, Verso, London. Silva, E (1971) HistOria de Brasilia, Coor-

denada, Brasilia. Spilhaus, A (1971) 'The experimental city"

in Bourne, L (Ed.) Internal Structure of the City, pp 511-515, Oxford, New York.

280

Documents

Brasilia: the frontier capital