Brasília: Life Beyond Utopia

in Hattie Hartman (ed): "Brazil: Restructuring the Urban"

Thomas Deckker was invited by Hattie Hartman, Sustainability Editor at the Architects' Journal and HonFRIBA, to contribute an article on Brasília to her special issue of Architectural Design "Brazil: Restructuring the Urban".

Brasília today lies at the heart of a thriving metropolitan region, the Distrito Federal (Federal District): a region of 5,800 km2 in the central plateau of Brazil, 1,000 kilometres inland from the former capital, Rio de Janeiro. Since its origin in the 1950s, it has proved to be a pragmatic and successful response to the challenges of urban development.

Brasília was not, in fact, planned in any meaningful way. The lack of a comprehensive masterplan meant that the expansion of the city was not controlled by a development framework, and Brasília today faces many of the urban challenges common to other Brazilian cities: a burgeoning periphery, a shortage of both low-income and middle-class housing and serious traffic congestion. In any case, it is unlikely that any masterplan, conceived when Brazil was a mainly rural economy with a population of 62 million, would continue to serve an urban consumer society of 207 million 60 years later.

The success of Costa's architectural vision was such, however, that despite being the fastest growing metropolitan region in Brazil, the Distrito Federal has the highest standard of living in the country, equal to major European countries.

Thomas Deckker
London 2016

This article was part of a special issue of Architectural Design on sustainable urban planning edited by Hattie Hartman and was accompanied by an exhibition at the McAslan Gallery.

Click here for the exhibition panels with photographs by Joana França and texts by Thomas Deckker.

Aerial photographs courtesy of Joana França

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