The second half of our tour of Brasilia took us away from the seat of power and into the residential areas of this city created out of the wilderness in 1959. It was all planned with nothing left to chance. I found the layout and the planned residential neighborhoods quite brilliant but first we visited the church dedicated to Don Bosco a 19th century Italian priest and missionary whom it is said had a vision of a city rising up in central Brazil on a plain near mountains at the confluence of four rivers. The mountains aren’t exactly there but the rivers were dammed into a lake providing electricity and water for the city which is now home to a luminous church dedicated to Don João Bosco of Turin.
A two and a half ton chandelier hanging from cement ceiling.
There is a recreation of the saint’s body in the crypt though most of his remains are buried in Turin Italy where he founded the Salesian order.
This is a relic in the best Catholic tradition as the statue does contain apparently the actual bone from his forearm.
Nothing if not modern: a QR code to make an offering of cash from your pew.
And a peculiarly public confessional for that most private admission of sin:
Aside from the creation myth Brasilia is a city built to an exacting plan such that it has been declared a UNESCO world heritage site.
This is something of a double edged sword as the designation limits construction in the city, which of course pushes up prices for land and housing forcing workers into lengthy commutes from the suburbs an hour away where housing is more affordable. 250,000 lucky people live in the city and 2.2 million live in the suburbs. The further you live from the center the cheaper land becomes. That is inviting not mentioned in the vision of the founder of the Salesian order. This is where the city’s residential construction began:
The Niemeyer design for modern living created “super blocks” of apartments designed to offer residents everything they needed within 15 minutes walk of their homes. Super block (Super Quadra) 108 started it all.
The streets are kept 65 feet (20 meters) from the housing to allow easy pedestrian access and to reduce car noise in the dwellings.
The apartments are forested to keep the city cooler and shady and to make walking and cycling pleasant.
This is of course rainy season, spring into summer in the southern hemisphere
Where in the States cars would be parked under the buildings, here the ground floor of the apartment building is common space for residents:
Brasilia sits at 3000 feet (900 meters) above sea level which helps mitigate the heat but it is a Florida-like climate here.
The apartments cover the full width of the buildings and one side has shading from the sun for ventilation.
But this is where the Niemeyer plan gets interesting because each super block is served by commercial infrastructure.
Each superblock looks like a park:
But a short walk away each block has a commercial street with stores, restaurants, bars and even a cinema:
And a gas station. Superblocks don’t exclude cars, they just keep them separated from pedestrians.
And the plans are all laid out by Oscar Niemeyer ‘s collaborator Lucio Costa who envisioned each plaza housing about 3200 people in four apartment units at the center of each superblock.
But if you look at Brasilia as a while the city was meticulously laid out as a cross except the arms of the cross were forced to bend to accommodate the lake. Our guide Alberto like the layout of the city to a hummingbird:
The city is divided into a north wing (“Ara Norte”) and a south wing each a mirror image of the other.
And there’s of course the first church built in Brasilia dedicated to noir Lady of Fatima built by JK’s wife, the first lady after her daughter recovered from kidney disease.
She wasn’t just superstitious as she also oversaw the creation of medical facilities in the city dedicated to dealing with. kidney disease.
And that I guess is how you build a modern city.
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| J K Bridge |
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| Superblock security station |
