Center of the Axis Crossing facing north- the bus stn- the north south road is in the tunnel/underpass in centre of pic. The towers of the banking sector can be seen

At the Western end of the East West Axis (left of the axis on the map) was planned to be the main railway station (which actually was an interstate bus station before it recently moved).  Running east along the Monumental axis are  sports grounds, Municipal (city) services and the TV tower. The large park on the Southwest of the Monumental Axis is City Park which is bigger than New York’s Central Park:

City Park

At the other end, the Eastern end (Bird tail) is a vast square called Three Powers Square around which are arranged the three key power centres of Brazil: the Supreme Federal Court, (National Congress and President Palace (Palácio do Planalto).  More on the buildings Thursday next week.

Moving west from the Three Powers Square along the Monumental Axis are the offices of the Brazilian Government Ministries which look like two rows of dominoes- each with a private parking area.

For the next kilometre from the Ministries to the Central Bus station are the Cathedral,  museums, library, planetarium all in a park like setting. 

The Monumental Axis itself consists of a long mall. In the middle of the Mall are broad sweeping lawns intended to be used by pedestrians and parades. On each side of the mall are two carriage ways of six lanes each. Urban legend has it that this is the widest road in the world. Not so. It does according to Guinness Book of Records have  the widest median strip in the world.

The Cathedral In Brasilia. Six lanes of traffic, a very wide median strip and six more lanes of traffic separate it from me in this picture.

Costas was determined to avoid the mistakes made in other cities. The road system was designed to reduce intersections with flyovers and cloverleafs and pedestrian tunnels.  Private car ownership was seen as the way of the future so the road system was designed to make driving a pleasure.

Costas envisaged taxis and buses for public transport even specifying the colour of the taxis (grey with green stripe) and the uniforms of the drivers.

Main Residential Superblocks
Large residential blocks were set in double or single line along both sides of the residential North-South highway axis. Each block was surrounded by bands of greenery planted with trees.  These blocks were grouped into four to create “superblocks”. All residential buildings within the blocks were six stories high raised on pillars (it is claimed so mothers could call down to their children).  While they were the same height level, the way the residential buildings were arranged on the blocks varied to create ground level variety

The local Church and secondary schools were placed in the middle of the superblocks. Shops and cinemas were included in the Superblock structure. All cars were parked at the front and residents would walk between schools, shops, church and residential buildings.

The superblocks were known by numbers, the residential buildings by letters in relation to the entrance to the superblock. An address would read, for example, N-S3-L, apt. 201. Costas believed that these superblocks would eliminate “undesirable class distinctions”

Entry map of a block of flats in a Super Block

 Other Housing
Isolated residential districts surrounded by trees and open countryside were sold for single family homes The lakefront was not to be developed for residences with the exception of the President’s house, to preserve the lake’s beauty

Brasilia Issues

A new town

1. The construction of a brand new city 200km from the nearest rail head with new highways built to link it to all parts of Brazil, almost bankrupted Brazil hence why some projects were not finished for years and some never completed
2. The army took control of Brazil in 1964, four years after the new capital had opened. Many infrastructure projects came to an end as the country slid into economic malaise.
3. Costas wanted no squatters or unplanned developments. This meant for example, the builders who came to build Brasilia were not allowed to live in the city so stayed in construction camps which grew into satellite  towns such as  Gama, Ceilândia, Taguatinga, Núcleo Bandeirante, Sobradinho, and Planaltina. 
4. All of the new towns, with the exception of Gama and Sobradinho were not planned.
5. The city population today is about 2.5 million (3.6 million in the metropolitan area) instead of the 0.5 million maximum originally envisaged
6. There is a debate as to whether Brasília consists of the whole metro area with the unplanned new towns or the original nucleus
7. the original plan was modified eg the original central pedestrian precinct with a European style cafe and market culture was never built
8. in a country with very low car ownership, building a car oriented city may not have been a good thing
9. In 1987 UNESCO put Brasília’s Pilot Plan on its official list of World Heritage sites. The disadvantage of this is it has turned the city into a museum. Nothing of the original plan can be altered

Criticisms of Brasília
Critics of the City are vicious:

• The greatest criticism of Brasília is that it is a culturally inappropriate city being based upon European ideas, not Brazilian ones
• it is designed for automobiles and air-conditioners, not people.
• The poor, who work in the construction and service industries, were not part of the plan for an inland capital and live in settlements up to 30 km outside the city, called ‘anti-Brasílias’.
• Holston claimed it fail to deliver on its social purpose
• “cultural wasteland”
• “lacks community”
• “the three day city” referring to the civil servants who delay arriving into Brasilia and get out as quickly as they can
• “Very spread out, painfully expensive and with little in the way of touristic sights, Brasilia doesn’t have much to offer the backpacker” 

I think some critics are too harsh. Everyone who lived here that I talked to was very proud of their city. It is a city though you need to adapt to.

My Reflections

Walking here is Counter Intuitive

People often claim that Brasilia was not planned as a pedestrian city. This is not so. Pedestrian pathways were carefully constructed so that cars and Pedestrians are separated. The aim to me seems to be that people would drive or be driven to a key locale. Once there they could leave their car and walk around. The disadvantage is that if you want to walk between locales, you are frustrated.

For example. My Hotel Melia Brasil 21 is what would be a maximum ten minute walk from the Galeria Metro station in any other city. The walk however is 20-25 minutes and thats now I knew where I am going.  The nature of the footpaths mean people need to know where they lead because some just seem to stop and others veer in the opposite dorcetion to your destination but veer back via some hidden passageway.

As a  result, as  a tourist trying to get from hotel to shopping and main monuments basically means taxis, hire cars or Exhaustion. More seriously, there are unofficial paths everywhere crossing across the vast grassed areas and deaths from people crossing the roads illegally.

I will post more on the difficulty of walking around Brasilia.

Public Transit underdeveloped in a car city

Streetlife vanishes . 

Walking around my hotel I would pass almost furtively other walkers . They were largely other tourists or the poor who cannot afford cars.

Doing errands is not easy. Everything is in sectors. Staying in a hotel, going to a client’s office and then to lunch with a friend and then buying a local cell phone is something that can be easily done in the same block in my home city Melbourne.

In Brasilia one would start at the Hotel sector, go to the Commercial sector then to the Shopping area and then back to the hotel.

Humanity dwarfed

This city makes me feel small as human. The big distances between sections of the city or between monuments combined with empty streets, vast squares and tall buildings all dwarf you.

Other cities have big buildings but they are “softened” by smaller buildings grouped around them eg shop fronts that are at a height accessible to humans.

In Brasilia.  the only place that seemed to allow people to capture a sense of their human size was inside the shopping malls.

While I understand the desire to emphasis the grandeur and help people have a sense of awe and wonder and excitement about their capital, their nation and its future. This was probably the intention at the start but is it time to allow people to interact and live with their city. Far from attractive people to their institutions the layout feels like it alienates humans.

So if Brasília my Simcity-what would I do?


1. Public Transport

• Reduce the empty space across the city with buildings eg build buildings on the existing open air car parks in the commercial area with underground three storey car parks. The ground floors of these buildings would be shops and restaurants to create more of a streetscape
• Replace the car parks at the central bus station with a European style retail, cafe and market precinct
• Fill in gaps in the hotel districts with mixed residential/retail spaces
• Build underground retail outlets mall(s) under the Mall near the Ministry Buildings. This retail mall would be something similar to the Citylink Mall in Singapore or the Montreal underground city. Workers can eat meals, buy cell phones, books and clothes in lunch hours or after work. If an underground metro line and station was built in the Ministry area, the underground malls would link from the ministry buildings to the metro station(s)
• Have affordable quality public housing eg develop the empty superblocks area in the north of the city into affordable housing opportunities

The Football in 2014 and Olympics in 2016 will make Brazil a place to visit for people across the globe. Brasilia is not ready

• Start promoting Brasília as an attractive destination in multiple languages
• Build a high speed rail line from Brasília to Sao Paulo to link onto the new line line built to Rio for the Olympic
• Introduce a series of activities and events to use the open spaces so there is always something happening in Brasilia downtown eg architecture festival, food festivals, film festivals-create a major event every month to build life and attract tourists
• Have a Farmers Markets downtown
• Encourage Musicians in the metro stations
• Get the Guggenheim to build a new museum opposite the existing museum on the pedestrian mall and build a new wing of national museum to encourage people to move between cultural buildings. Linked to a new Museum Metro Station, one stop to Central would mean both locals and tourists could visit easily

I am tempted to create Brasilia in a SimCity game (as soon as I can find one for my Mac) and see if I can add my changes and compare what that does to the game!