Lúcio Costa

Costa is best known for his urban plan for the city of Brasília, located in Brazil's hinterland. Costa won the job in a 1957 public competition in order to replace Rio de Janeiro as the capital of Brazil. His Plano Piloto (Pilot Plan) for Brasília, is in the shape of an irregular cross, suggesting an airplane or dragonfly. While the majority of the project's architecture was designed by Oscar Niemeyer, Costa's own Parque Guinle project was the model for Brasília's many residential tower-in-a-park superblocks. The new city was inaugurated on 21 April 1960 and represents one of the largest adoptions of Modernism in a singular project to the present day.

Although named as an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987,[11] the city is notorious for its windswept emptiness and anti-pedestrian layout.[7][3] Some streets are badly lit because the height and the spacing of light standards were not changed with the advent of mercury-vapor lamps, and World Heritage Site designation has prevented remediation. Overall, despite the city's positive features, the concept and execution have sparked controversy which is explored in The Modernist City. Brasilia has been expressed as an attempt at a utopian city or in the nickname ilha da fantasia (fantasy island), indicating the sharp contrast between the city and the surrounding regions, marked by poverty and disorganization.

The middle of the 20th century saw urban struggles for Brazil. Brazilian cities, particularly Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo had seen an increase of problems regarding transportation, sufficient housing, public utilities, and distribution of essential goods such as food. By the 1950s, the frustration of the upper class residents of these locations had convinced the political elite that a long term solution was necessary, making the idea of constructing a new capital city a compelling idea.

There was no consensus on the project from the Brazilian people. Many thought that the new capital would be a "monumental urbanistic and social disaster", believing that a project of that magnitude and cost would cause massive inflation in the Brazilian economy.[12] The critics believed that the current state of Brazil, defined by poverty, corruption, and disease, would not be addressed by the building of a new capital city; it would merely distract from the nation's real issues while giving the populist politicians, such as Juscelino Kubitschek, a way of enriching their personal legacies.

Despite the criticism, the idea of a new capital received widespread backing. To the supporters, Brasília would symbolize Brazil's coming of age. The Brazilian coastal cities were remnants of the colonial era and the center for agricultural trade. Despite Brazil's imposing geographic presence in South America, the country was largely a coastal country. There had been several publicists calling for a marcha para oeste, or westward march, in order to utilize the bountiful excess of land to the west. Also, it was felt that due to the current capital's location at Rio, the government's views of the nation was distorted. To be placed in a central location for these reasons, Brasília could become a new source for new growth for the country, a springboard for modernization and industrial production.

The new capital would be the diverging point for a series of new infrastructure development, such as long-range highways. It would be an optimistic step towards a unified, modern, and prosperous Brazil; towards fulfilling Brazil's "continental destiny" while also relieving the pressure on the existing urban centers.[13] As put by Brazilian writer and diplomat José Osvaldo de Meira Penna in 1958: "A centrally located capital…might make Brazil more conscious of her role in the Americas, her terrestrial frontiers with Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela. When the attention of the elites turns from their nearly exclusive interest in Europea, the 'splendid isolation' will be broken which has until now separated, in spirit and in fact, Brazil from continental neighbors".[14]

The idea to establish a new Brazilian capital was adopted, and the location for Brasília would be within the Brazilian State of Goiás. The search for the site had been calculated, based on factors such as the favorability of the climate, water supply, land quality for agriculture, a suitable power source within 100 kilometers, and access to ground and air transportation.

Once it had been determined that there would be a new capital and the location had been established, the project entered into the design process. The plan was to be selected among competing plans from various Brazilian architects and city planners by an international jury. The participating designers were given the necessary information to make suitable plans for the space. Each participant was to submit two pieces in their proposal, a basic layout of the city and a supporting report that exhibited logistical details.

The design of Lucio Costa was selected for Brasilia. Although the design had not been as detailed as some of the other plans submitted, the jurors found it favorable due its features that would complement future population growth. The plan, called Costa's Plano Piloto, conceptually demanded four components: (1) the government buildings, (2) the residential zones or superblocks, (3) the vehicular circulation and transportation infrastructure, (4) and the city center.[15] In all, this original design was intended to hold a population of 500,000 people.[16] In order to fulfill this, Costa's design called for an urban plan in the form of a cross, often described as an airplane, bird, or dragonfly.[17] Some scholars have found symbolism in this shape of plan, a reference to the cross of the early Portuguese conquerors, the bow and arrow of the native populations of Brazil, or the jet shape as a symbol for future innovation.[18]

The plan essentially divided the new capital into two parts, the Monumental Axis and the Residential Axis. The Monumental Axis, which points east to west, would serve as the home for the new civic buildings. This wide mall was intended to create a feeling of grandeur and significance, and is the location of the ministries, national congress, supreme court and other administrative buildings. The two "wings" of the Residential Axis, which runs north to south, would contain the residential and commercial developments. Costa envisioned these as the most important aspect of the design, as they would be home to a majority of the city's daily operations, such as local commerce, schools, recreation and churches. The Residential Axis consisted of 96 superblocks, which were limited to six-storey buildings, and 12 additional superblocks limited to three-storey buildings.[19]

Each of the individual super blocks was supposed to have a distinct style for each superblock and a uniform paint scheme that set it apart from the surrounding superblocks. Costa's goal for the superblocks was to create neighborhoods and communities that were small self-contained and self-sufficient. He envisioned that they would have apartment buildings of a consistent modern style that housed both upper and middle classes, making integration a key theme of the city's design. The Residential Axis's two wings were meant to have a character that was intimate and peaceful, rather than the Monumental Axis that was designed to be imposing.

One of the unique aspects about the plan was how it was designed to handle expansion and growth. Unlike most cities, which add to a grid or expand the urban plan with growth, Costa's design provided the complete and large-scale plan.[20] The original plan included paving streets in areas of the city that would not be put to immediate use, making the landscape of the city defined and hard to change during future construction. It was already "born with an adult skeleton". However, this did mean that large portions of the city would not see high levels of activity in the early years. Another contributing factor in the thorough plan was an emphasis on establishing an organized road system that would best serve the expanding use of automobiles. Costa's design of auto-routes was meant to create a system where traffic would be free flowing. He hoped that by establishing this grid at the city's founding that future construction projects regarding traffic improvements could be avoided.

The President of Brazil, Juscelino Kubitschek (1956-1961), approved Costa's plan and construction of Brasília, fulfilling the promise of the Brazilian constitution and some of his own personal political campaign promises. Construction started in 1956, using the urban design of Costa and the services of chief architect Oscar Niemeyer.[21] The building materials for the large project were primarily from local sources. The residential buildings in the superblocks were all constructed with local concrete. The initial phase of Brasília was completed on 21 April 1960, in only four years. By the time of the inauguration on this date, while the city was not fully complete, Costa's vision had taken its physical form; the main buildings on the Monumental Axis, such as the Congress and Ministries had been built, along with the main transit center, the majority of the highway system, and several of the superblocks. In order to complete the large project in a short window of time, funding had to be organized swiftly, sufficient labor had to be acquired, and equipment and material had to be bought and transported onto the site.

Labor for the project required the migration of workers into the area and construction camps were built to house workers with the permission of the authorities. These temporary settlements, also called Cidade Livre, were eventually slated for removal. However, these efforts were ineffective, and the settlements grew into self-sustaining communities, and were eventually adopted as satellite cities (suburbs). Gradually over the decades to come, the satellite communities continued to form on the outskirts of Brasilia, serving a valuable function towards battling low-cost housing issues that arose in the city. While alterations have been made to the design since the city's construction, the original plan by Costa prominently survives.

Following the opening of Brasilia, the modern design attracted the interest of artists, theater and musical groups, and younger generations of Brazilian citizens. One reason for this particular crowd was a coordinated effort to make Brasilia the new cultural center of the country. There were venues during the city's first years to help encourage artistic activities, such as the International Congress of Art Critics in 1959, an annual National Salon for several years in the early 1960s, and the establishment of several musical and theatrical groups.[22]

Since its initial completion, Brasilia has gone through several stages of population changes. After initial interest following the opening, population numbers decreased before recovering in the late 1960s. Brasilia is now estimated to be Brazil's 3rd most populous city.