Brasilia in Old Photos

Peter: 23rd Dec 2008 - 22:44 GMT

oh WOW... this is straight-up classic citynoise porn! i love it... everything looks so new in these photos... even the photos on the Brasilia wiki look so much more developed and aged since these.

i dont know what books and magazines you got ahold of, but feel free to post this sort of stuff any time... its ace :)

CartLegger: 23rd Dec 2008 - 23:30 GMT

yeah this is great. I'll make sure to use these in my urban studies class.

Franny Wentzel: 24th Dec 2008 - 05:33 GMT

Brasilia B-roll pictures

Grand plan of Brasilia. Sorta shaped like a dragonfly

Concept sketch by Oscar Neimeyer - Temple of Syrinx on right

Reflecting pool behind Congress hall

Artsey National Geographic shot - oddly enough their 1960 article about the city didn't have any useful photos. Got this from a later article.

More artsey photos

The ministry buildings - we've taken care of everything, the words you hear, the songs you sing, the pictures that give pleasure to your eyes...

The foreign ministry - in 1964 the Brasilian president was overthrown and the military ruled for about 21 years when they finally couldn't print enough money to buy the people's love.

The National Cathedral

Monument to the dudes who built this crazy town. Throw it up for Brasilia!

little ukraine: 27th Dec 2008 - 17:43 GMT

wow wow, thank you so much for this post.

Peter: 14th Jan 2009 - 04:27 GMT

ok, after seeing some of your recent posts, i had to look back and see what else i had missed... this one is great, too. you must have quite a collection of great source material :)

this sort of makes me want to go through and scan some similar printed material i have and post it. i never thought of doing that. do you mind if i bite your idea? hehehe...

Franny Wentzel: 14th Jan 2009 - 05:31 GMT

As Joe Don Baker used to say in Final Justice, "Go ahead on..."

Tyfoid Kid: 14th Jan 2009 - 21:35 GMT

Kind of reminds me of Omega Man - all empty and urban at the same time. I just saw something on the TV about the architect and they said he did a great job designing the city for the space and the buildings but didn't include anywhere for the people to be.

Charlie: 1st May 2009 - 10:13 GMT

Ugh, I liked! So clear and positively.
Thanks

livia: 11th Aug 2009 - 17:20 GMT

Urban planning ... ?? ... I have mixed feelings about it ...

In that "Pilot Plan" picture, shaped like a dragonfly, cross, airplane, etc. Those wings are known as the North Wing and South Wing neighbourhood ... !!

Franny Wentzel: 11th Aug 2009 - 18:02 GMT

Here's a little something of Brasilia that's in the novel I'm writing... the lead character Jennifer Platt has been invited to speak on a TV panel discussion after visiting a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new Brasilia school. 'We' and 'us' refer to the story narrators, conjoined twins Shoshanna & Ariel Brillstein.

"After getting a couple set pictures for posterity, we watched the show from up in the control room, employing Manny and Lucy to translate for us and incidentally, to check on the person translating for Jenny - it seems that Brazilians spoke, of all things, the language of tiny Portugal. Her co-panelists were 'Tino' Valentino, a staff architect with the firm that designed Brasilia and Yolanda Wega, a rather shrill harpy of a social scientist from Rio, who was taking up the anti-Brasilia sword for the evening, leaving Jenny, who was introduced as 'one of the youthful architects of the future', to argue both ends against the middle.

Suffice to say, she handled herself quite well and made good use of her slides. The Dickersons, for all their passion, effectively neutralized each other's arguments leaving Jenny to get in nuanced digs like, 'There's really no point in comparing Brasilia to Rio because in another five or ten years they'll have torn down most of Rio and replaced it with something not as good and then where would you be?' or 'Brasilia is the culmination of city planning ideas kicking around since the industrial revolution of the last century... Nice to see they finally got one built...'

Finding Miss Wega a 'Jacobite' (referring to urbanist Jane Jacobs), Jenny reminded her that for all Jane's waxing rhapsodic about the qualities of Greenwich Village, Harlem meets the exact same criteria and that's considered a fetid slum on a par with the favelas up in the hills around Rio. Anyway the Village these days is crawling with Madison Avenue ad executives taking their three martini lunches and out-of-towners looking for an 'adventure' in the Big City. Oh there are still a few Bohemian poseurs left to carry the flag of nonconformity, but the real artists have since relocated to the cast-iron district downtown.

Still, for those Brasilians who continue to pine for the café life of Rio, Jenny suggested that sheltered areas could be set up between the ministry buildings and serve lunch outdoors, showing a slide of the Sukkot tent she'd done for us as an example. She also suggested installing reflecting pools along the Monumental Axis sketching an abstract design with loads of trapezoids to take into account footpaths that had already worn into the grass that everyone agreed looked very Brazilian and might be an idea worth pursuing. Someday."

Roy Brodrick: 23rd Sep 2012 - 18:23 GMT

Thank you your pitures bring back some good memories

Paul Matzner: 7th Dec 2012 - 17:08 GMT

Very nice article and pictures. I would like to see additional material on the relationship of Neimeyer's work here to nature and the surrounding environment

Thank you

Franny Wentzel: 8th Dec 2012 - 01:30 GMT

Not much I can do about that Paul. I've pretty much posted what images I have. Maybe you could look online or better yet at your local library for some books about Oscar Neimeyer.