New Delhi Exhibition Brazil’s capital Brasília was built around a central vista designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer

To begin with, there was no vegetation, no people and no lake…. just a cross on the ground. Two roads met there in perpendicular, marking the start of construction of Brazil’s new capital, Brasilia, a vast expanse of 5,802 sq. km. to be built-up on a plateau at an elevation of 1,100 metres in Brazil’s Planalto Central highlands.

The dream of a new capital for Brazil, where all development and people had thus far crowded into coastal cities like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, was more than a century old. It was even written into the Brazilian Constitution in 1891, but only commissioned in 1956, when President Juscelino Kubitschek saw it as the base for his slogan ‘50 years of development in 5’.

By now, the dream of Brasilia was about much more than a new city — it was to be the flag-bearer of Brazilian democracy, of a modern, progressive outlook for the country, and an egalitarian society that would allow the people living more inland, some much-needed development — all of which would go into the capital’s design.

The city was designed, much like Washington D.C.’s Mall, and Lutyen’s New Delhi, around a ‘central vista’. The vista included the Presidential Palace, Parliament building and offices at one end, government buildings down the way and then planned housing shaped in ‘super quadras’, all leading down to the Brasilia bus stop at the other end.

The ‘Plano Piloto’ or city plan — likened to a bird, a bow and arrow, or an airplane — was made by architect Lúcio Costa, along with buildings designed by the world-famous architect Oscar Niemeyer, who chose concrete as his medium for its ‘flow’, and structural engineer Joaquim Cardozo, who brought form to the concrete. The entire plan, including an artificial lake built by damming two nearby rivers, was completed in an astounding 41 months, and inaugurated in 1960.

More than 60 years later, the making of Brasilia is the subject of an exhibition at New Delhi’s National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), curated by Brazilian Ambassador André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, himself an architecture enthusiast, who knew Niemeyer before his death in 2012. The exhibition which includes photographs, tapestries, tiles and even modernistic furniture from Brazil, begins with a full model of Brasilia’s main avenue: a central vista within Delhi’s Central Vista, as it were.

Every Brasilia building has a unique style, says the Ambassador. The presidential offices, and the Itamaraty Palace (Foreign Ministry) are built low and wide, the Parliament buildings tower as two conjoined skyscrapers over the city, but all have one important similarity: Niemeyer’s designed pillars. Unlike the grand colonial columns favoured in other capitals, Niemeyer drew his pillars as ‘feminine’ L-shaped wings, tapering at the top and bottom to give the buildings the sense that they barely touch the ground while they reach for the sky at the other end.

Another important feature of all the buildings is that the approach and entrance to each building is different. At the Itamaraty Palace, for instance, dignitaries are led across a waterbody into the building and up a grand set of iconic bannister-less stairs. When it rains, cars come through a long tunnel and dignitaries alight inside a hall on the first floor that visually opens the building up in a controlled manner.

The iconic Cathedral of Brasilia, shaped like a gigantic upside-down flower supported by massive steel columns and meshed with blue and white stained glass, has a similarly surprising entrance. At others, Niemeyer built ramps for entry, guiding pedestrians to appreciate the architectural highlights gradually as they walk up. Buildings in the residential area are all built on stilts, allowing for gardens below that give residents an unlimited park area to walk across, with shaded areas in between.

“Niemeyer said that the first impact was for the common man in the street to have a look at the building, find it interesting and remember something that is different from his everyday life,” says Corrêa do Lago. “Be it in the Presidential Residence or office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Parliament building or Supreme Court building, each experience is very, very different and I think this is one of the secrets of Niemeyer’s success.

‘Elegant monotony’

While many have marvelled at what is called Brasilia’s “concrete El Dorado”, six decades of existence have also highlighted its many failures. Brasilia is a capital, but not a city, and lacks a vibrant street life. The ‘hotel district’ for instance, is like an aerocity, where tourists are confined to seeing only other hotels and other tourists, rather than mixing with the locals. (After a visit, feminist author Simone de Beauvoir described it as “elegant monotony”.)

Part of the problem is that planned cities such as Brasilia, Chandigarh (Niemeyer drew inspiration from Le Corbusier’s modernist style), Islamabad and others are imagined grid-like, in squares, unlike historic cities like London, Rome, Shanghai, Kolkata and Lahore. Brasilia’s population is now about 4.8 million, but many of the people live in satellite towns, which have grown more organically around the main capital area.

The original plan for an egalitarian city structure has also made way as more elite prime real estate comes up closer to the water’s edge. Even so, Brasilia has shown a path to other countries seeking to rebuild their narrative through the construction of a new capital: from Malaysia’s Putrajaya, Nigeria’s Abuja, Myanmar’s Nyapitaw, to Indonesia’s Nusantara and South Korea’s Sejong.

While the debate over building a new city rather than restoring an old one will continue, the lasting impact of any construction made with considered thought, is undeniable. Explaining the purpose of his architecture, Niemeyer famously said, “Humanity needs dreams to endure misery, even if just for an instant.”

‘Brasília 60+ and the Construction of Modern Brazil’ is at NGMA, New Delhi, till July 31, and will then travel to Chandigarh and other cities.

suhasini.h@thehindu.co.in