Brasília

Janie Hirschbuehler Arch 541 Homework 2 Lucio Costa planned Brasília, the main capital of Brazil, in 1956 after winning a design competition. His plan involved a city organized around the intersection of a monumental axis and a residential axis (James-Chakraborty). Throughout this time European avant-garde modernism was gaining foothold in South America, with focus mainly on creating an appropriate image of modern architecture for their non-affluent tropical setting. The completed Brasília offers reflectance of both the acceptance and rejection of this European modernism. Le Corbusier was one of the forerunners of European modernism. He built City for Three Million back in 1922, which appeared to play a clear impact on the design of Brasília. The most notable similarity is the strict separation of functions, as implemented by Costa. Shaping a utopian society was one of the goals of modernist architecture, and is shown through this space planning. This was made possible because the government built the city (James-Chakraborty). Brasília is still referred to as a modernist city today. Oscar Niemeyer, who had designed key monuments such as National Assembly and Supreme Federal Court for Brasília, was a key figure in developing modernist architecture in Brazil. The characteristics implemented in his buildings such as the strong use of columns, sinuous curves, and extreme lightness, proudly represented the goals of modernist architecture. Other characteristics he also presented…