Brasilia and the Legacy of Planning Planned Cities
- Andrew Gast-Bray, Ph.D., AICP
- Mar 21
- 13 min read
Updated: Apr 17
This article was originally published in the International Division of APA's InterPlan and was awarded the 2023-24 Best Newsletter Article of the Year by the American Planning Association Divisions Council.
Co-author: Matheus Mendes is a planner/architect and principal at Hersen Mendes, LLC in Brasilia, Brazil. He holds a master's degree in architecture and planning from the University of Brasília (UNB) and an MBA from Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV). He is also a project professor of undergraduate courses at IESB.
Traveling to see old friends in Brasilia, a famous ‘planned city, I thought to do more than be a tourist. My friend, Ana, introduced me to a local planner/architect who had so much insight and thoughtful material to add, not to mention being able to translate from Portuguese, that I asked him to co-explore with us. He, in turn, connected me to a group of professors and community development specialists who provided answers to questions floating around in my head for years about the planning of ‘planned cities’.
As we are 100 years or so on from Le Corbusier’s (Corbu) Vers une architecture and roughly 70 after the architect/ planners that he inspired, Costa and Niemeyer, conceived their planning method for Brasilia¹, I wondered, do we have enough distance to appreciate their legacy?
Many articles on Brasilia are more researched and in-depth than my brief overview here, but they tend to be more architectural in analysis or are focused on the architects. I was intending neither an indictment nor a praise of, nor a study of these individuals - more so casual musings{T} about movements to solve current problems, based on the experience and results from the “Pilot Plan” for Brasilia. ({T} For more musings on related topics, see “Termini”)
I was more interested in ‘Planning’, in the process of planned city movements, the paradigm, and the effect over time of such. Is there anything to be learned from Costa and Niemeyer’s idealism and hubris in its application to our times? Some future perspective looking back on us? From a local perspective, from a quality-of-life perspective, which I think is more important for their impact globally (i.e., not a lot of calls to move capital cities these days), what is the legacy, both good and bad? Any lessons as we planners embark, convinced of our new directions, new science, and techniques solving current problems?
Primer on the Plano Piloto (Pilot Plan)
The Plano Piloto for Brasilia stemmed from a longstanding effort to make Brazil less coastal, as the vast majority of the country lived on the coast. Therefore, they proposed to move the capital inland from Rio de Janeiro to better represent and link all of Brazil. Costa and Niemeyer (and Roberto Burle Marx as the landscape architect) were the architects/planners set to the task³.
To avoid disrupting existing economies and to address the planning zeitgeist of single-use-zone planning, the design focused on government/ administrative functions. The plan explicitly avoided industrial and agricultural uses⁴. As a high plain (think Serengeti, Aravalli in India, or eastern Colorado), the area experienced long dry seasons (over 100 days without rain while I was there), so planning for water was key - a reservoir called Lago Paranoá (Paranoa Lake) was to flank the entire project.
The principal access was designed based on automobile travel⁵ with Monumental and N-S Highway axes² to nest within the arc formed by the topography and the reservoir. The Monumental Axis housed the governmental functions for the country and the federal district. Residential superblocks were aligned along the Highway Axis to house the citizenry of the city. The city was designed to serve up to 500,000 residents with the potential to add more ‘villages’ along the axes.¹ Costa also planned to have subsequent towns string along in the same manner to accommodate any additional demands.
How has the ‘planning’ effort performed after nearly 70 years?
There were several problems that Costa/Niemeyer faced: rapid industrialization, urban concentration, housing needs, international expectations. Records show that solving housing, and its dependent massing particularly from a spatial management perspective, was a principal drive force for their efforts¹.
Furthermore, tenement housing was still fresh in most planners’ minds. Apartment neighborhoods were devised as “towers in a park,” largely based on Corbu’s designs to add greenspace and cost-effective density to theoretically avoid the squalor, but in most places of that time, that led to projects like Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis, which lost the emphasis on human-scale. In Brasilia, however, the blocks were more reminiscent of Haussman's Paris. Magnificent landscaping, well-scaled courtyard greens – block heights reputedly designed for a mother to call from the top floor to a child playing in the greenspace below.
The Superblocks were much more human-scaled than I was led to believe from my research, far more than a Corbu tower. Sure, there were too few parking spaces because there was too much emphasis on moving cars - similarly, there was impingement on the walkability of the place, but spaces seemed intimate and friendly. Each edifice had distinctive features - akin again to an Haussman boulevard lined with similarly massed buildings but each with unique features.
Unlike many modernist structures, the googie architecture was beautiful and iconic {see below}, at least captivating. It was like being in a scene from the Jetsons, rather than in some brutalist vision from a Corbu drawing. “You may not like modernism, but you cannot call her ugly,” to paraphrase Niemeyer’s description⁶. Certainly, a long tradition of making a capital a place to awe {T} visiting dignitaries persisted: cf. Versailles, DC, Napoleonic Paris… It succeeded in creating a ‘Monumental Axis’ of buildings respected around the world. It does seem distinctive and formal - a stark contrast with the coastal cities {T} .
It was mentioned to me, however, that it may have been more of a way to convince the Brazilians to leave the known entity of the coasts for the center AND pay for it – no mean feat as the building and moving of the capital was a tremendous drain on the country’s finances for years, requiring popular support. It also created respect and even love within the country itself - a love and respect that has remained long after all the creators have passed.
How did it do?
I put the question to the locals. In a room of a dozen people who study this, unsurprisingly , I had even more opinions about Brasilia than people, ranging from mild social critic to passionate advocate, but consensus seemed to indicate that Brasilia did what it was intended to. Its principal problems today were born of that success. Costa and Niemeyer were attempting to solve problems of the day, but, as always, there are unintended consequences that accompany the intended ones.
The housing was a success, at least for a while. It was simply insufficient to handle the 4.3 million residents that it now has. That has led to voluminous sprawl. The superblock housing is still highly sought-after, gentrifying in fact, which exacerbates the sprawl problem. Now, unfortunately, 80% of the community must find its housing elsewhere. However, what other burgeoning world city is successful in this? With the political zeitgeist, Costa and Niemeyer attempted to devise more equitable accommodations for all, but housing ended up stratifying regardless, with a flight of the wealthy to large houses on the reservoir and in posh suburbs. Again, this seems no different than in other cities.
On the other hand, I thought the Monumental Axis was perhaps too true to its name. It succeeded in being monumental, just not particularly appealing for humans to spend time there in the large empty hardscape. Not soulless – as the quote goes, but somewhat uncomfortable like a de Chirico painting - putting one out of one's element.
The commercial districts were placed along a corridor parallel to the Highway Axis, W-3, with a perpendicular connector. The intent was to create local village centers for daily living needs. However, car-based lifestyles were still relatively new, especially in Brazil. Thus, they were seemingly unprepared for the nature of car travel transforming retail. Large centers cannibalized the smaller ones, creating underperforming areas and also diminishing walkability {T} everywhere. None of the commercial areas is particularly walkable (remember, though, that was not a priority in 1957). Transit is also, consequently, underperforming as well – only those with no other choice use this secondary system.
That the car solution is not successful at solving all transportation problems and, in fact, leads to the destruction of human space is not unique to Brasilia. By precluding walking, local retail centers morphing inconsistently into car-based strip malls precluded access to other things: church, school… so everything requires more parking than can ever be provided while maintaining human spaces. Now, everyone must generally drive everywhere, and backups inevitably occur – as in most of the world.
The W-3 is transitioning as a result (see photo below). This appears to be working well – the addition of housing and office space to the mix. However, it is not addressing the housing and commercial needs of large numbers of residents with limited access to the Pilot Plan area.
Conclusion: What might be involved in a present-day do-over?
Certainly, the iconic architecture of an era has had a lasting legacy. The planning efforts solved the problems they were tasked to – within the budget that they had, at least. So, what might be done differently?
After my visit and inquiries, I suspect that Costa/ Niemeyer would say that they did not take all into account, even if they succeeded in the focus for the day. They probably would also have asserted that they did not have (enough) contingencies or the contingencies that were needed over time – viz., population numbers in the millions. Finally, I suspect they would have put in more mechanisms to allow change to more easily to address the issues that were not planned for. I will address each of these three points separately and in order:
1) Planning for the Whole
As is often the case with more architecturally focused solutions, Brasilia emphasized space solutions over human ones. Providing fabulous world-class architecture to define the new Brazilian government capital was an awesome success. To be fair, this still attracts people here and adds a lot of pride - very little built over the last ½ century has as much appeal in its aesthetic – it inspired the Kennedy Center after all. But the quality-of-life aspect has continued to present a challenge. Far more of the metropolitan area compensates for, rather than complements, this aspect.
Cars were favored as well. Consequently, transit and walking were marginalized. Given that most of the poor cannot live anywhere close to the center, this presents a challenge that could have been overcome, but was not. The plan for additional villages accessible via transit was doable theoretically – had there been the contingency. We know money came up short, which will probably always be an issue. The Brasilia RFP limited/closed the system on the design and/or its future. One lesson might be to encourage proposal (i.e., RFP) respondents to provide critical pushback to ensure that the question at the origin of a study is eventually answered or a mechanism is provided to do so, even if they are outside the study scope. The study itself must not become a self-limiting prospect, losing any chance to transcend from the original challenge to something truly problem-solving or exceptional. Current day examples: an intersection timing study for car travel that did not include consideration of other transportation modes or the development of a bayside site without taking into consideration the impacts of flooding and sea-level rise.
2) Planning for Time
The Pilot Plan mostly addressed the needs of its day, not a much more distant future – so it was out of date not long after it was built. Remember the commercial street, W-3, that, after initial success, failed to appeal to residents, and subsequently commercial interests turned to other designs. A more linear commercial street only worked for a while, but with one part looking much like the rest. There was no sense of place or value to the location or orientation² for the commercial interests, which transitioned to commercial spaces akin to those in the rest of the world – more centered in malls elsewhere.
Beauty and pride have seemed to last. The housing proposed worked for a while. For the population numbers requested, it was an efficient housing solution, arguably more successful than similar housing solutions in England and the US. But, it was tied up with Communist ideals and egalitarianism as a goal. Neither seemed to pan out. A parallel today might equate to if we designed exclusively for Covid, will that be the prevailing issue a decade from now? 70 years from now?
Planning contingencies in time? What if something gets bigger than expected? What if it does not do well? Should this not be a part of all planning efforts? Related to this, are the mechanisms there to allow adjustment? – to make the solution elsewhere in place and time? If the solution is forced to go elsewhere, does that mean the area proposed to solve the problem did not succeed? Or, is it more “Brasilia, what have you done for me recently”?
Also, this was the heyday of Robert Moses and his highways as a solution to all transportation. Brasilia was laid out for cars, but still does not work – is that the fault of those architects? Or is it the fault of cars – an untried solution to urban problems of the day that was later shown to fail, but the idea at its heart really was not that of those architects – they simply were exploiting the proposed engineering solutions of the day. Oversimplistic faith in technological fixes? Is there something to be learned by us with green technologies? For instance: AVs being thought of as a solution to current transportation problems, without thinking of the whole picture of transportation and its impact over time.
Furthermore, Maintenance?! There never seems to be enough set aside to ensure that a place stays even at the level of its start - so how can something ever work over time if this is the case? This leads to process point below.
3) Planning for Adaptation
Ironically, the beauty of its Pilot Plan is now often the chief constraint to fixing the issues that currently trouble its adoring residents, with any change being viewed with skepticism if not a religious-like intolerance. My local experts found consensus on the following problems: sprawl, lack of quality transit, lack of walkability, insufficient infrastructure to handle the needs today, rich vs. poor – the same litany of problems facing most of the world's cities. Perhaps, Brasilia failed in its (possibly unrealistic) promise {T}; perhaps the promise itself was a driving force that led it to be overwhelmed.
Was the process for the Pilot Plan itself too rigid to adjust? Brasilia no longer seems as relevant a world-leading city, like Paris or even Curitiba. It preserves so much of the original Pilot Plan that it seems a hole in the whole. There seems to be no real plan for the future, which might address the shortcomings of THIS day? Though there is obviously talk about what to improve, can it be altered without undermining the original objectives/heritage? Can any of us make some place continue to survive and thrive without losing what it was or what it was doing?
In the end, I was left with far more questions than answers. Perhaps, rather than having answers, ‘Planning’ cities may be more about asking the right questions {T}. Maybe we, with our newer methods, science, and techniques, should not suffer from the same hubris as we plan, for we may do less well solving our problems than Costa and Niemeyer did in solving theirs.
Termini
Since I had far more questions than could be addressed, I left a given question or question set as a query - as a musing - called it a terminus to be pursued later either by me or someone else. Some are listed below:
What was the meant by 'pilot plan'? Was it a trial or a test of a theory? If trial, why did they not adapt to needs as they went along or at least faster? If test of an idea, i.e., will it work if let run? – was that what the Pilot Plan was doing?
Corbu’s ideas reflect a tabula rasa when he calculated his spatial solutions, but the real world is anything but. Would reflecting the true empirical universe have helped designers ‘design with nature’ and save cost? Drive forces and patterns⁷ in nature are not purely geometric. If both organic and inorganic environmental patterns are taken into account, will that reflect what happens in more ‘organic’ cities? Design with nature or one will always be fighting a losing battle over time, because the natural realm will eventually win out? –cf. Corbu quote⁵
Reverence - There was a certain reverence in the Monumental Axis buildings, many replete with stained glass – is that necessarily a part of monuments or should it be?
Formality vs. informality – Brazilians are so informal, why does the formal Monumental Axis resonate with them?
Rich vs. poor - is cost overrun just a power and money decision, rather than lack of money itself? If resources are scarce, will decision-makers always choose to protect their own first?
Wayfinding, signage and human behavior/decisionmaking. The layout and naming system of Brasilia is extremely logical. Does this lead to better wayfinding? Or does this not take into account realtime decision-making? It is hard to know where you are if you are not familiar with the area – there are precious few signs.
Brasilia was not walkable – certainly not in areas that most need it - poor crossings, destroyed pavement, etc. This made it feel ‘inhuman’ and it was seemingly defaced because of it. Human scale, is it a two-aspect essence, like a hadron, but manifestation is walkability and sense of place: Is walkability inextricable from a sense of place for a human – i.e., walkability must be a part of human space? Is walkability just one parameter (but a necessary one) in a human connection to a place?
Why do de Chirico paintings look a bit like the Monumental Axis spaces? Not soulless but out-of-phase, dislocated, abstracted… Are we meant to feel less in the face of the monuments? cf. Monuments before: Versailles, DC, Haussman's Paris... Or are they better if we can connect to them (e.g., Vietnam War monument)?
Did Costa/Niemeyer tweak boulevards to make the 3 Powers Plaza look like an impregnable castle – with fosse, moat in front of 3 Powers Plaza as one approaches on foot?
As we look forward to a more sustainable future, will we be making essentially the same mistakes in regard to our time as Costa did in his? Our efforts, are they simply products of today with metrics and values changing, so we will, in essence, never “succeed”?
Asking questions like what will be or should be our role in the face of algorithms, computers and robots – as we design for the future – perhaps letting nonhuman elements do the designs and/or decisions. Will the decisions be the right ones? Even if they ‘technically’ are, should we allow them to decide?
Is promise itself a drive force?
Is Planning more questioning than answering? Should it be?
1. Urbanistic Paradigms of Brasilia, Sylvia Ficher
2. Le Corbusier’s Modernism in Costa’s Pilot Plan for Brasilia 1960, ARTHIST. https://ats.emory.edu/_includes/documents/ARTHIST_ InDesign%20Final%20Paper_example%203.pdf, accessed 9/13/2022
3. Sixty Years Ago, The Modernist City of Brasilia Was Built From Scratch, Stefanie Waldek, Architectural Digest, August 21, 2020.
4. Edital: Public notice for the National Pilot Plan Competition for the New Capital of Brazil, Oscar Niemeyer
5. Brasilia’s Modernism could do with some urban spontaneity, Carlo Ratti, Mint Curator. https://www.livemint.com/opinion/ columns/braslias-modernism-could-do-with-some-urban-spontaneity-11630862155252.html accessed 9/13/2022
6. Quotes from Niemeyer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYhpFEHJkkI (min 4:49 to 5:51 // 26:49 to 27:31 // 34:15 to 34:28), accessed 9/12/2022
7. S. Pauls and A. Gast-Bray - Unpublished research demonstrating parallels between planning concepts and natural phenomena like crystal nucleation, growth and Ostwald ripening.
Kommentare