Brasília, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the capital city of Brazil. Along with Saltaire, another WHS, Brasília is a city that was designed and built from scratch, a planned settlement begun in 1956. I could endulge the inner-geek and really go to town on the facts, but you all know how to find Wikipedia so I'll desist on this occasion. Arriving on a Sunday meant everything was shut. Boring. It reminded me of being a young teenager in the days when everything was closed on Sundays. Really, really boring. This city is different from the rest of Brazil, more like the UK in many ways. Let's assess the pros and cons...
In its favour - Brasília is litter free, has fresh air, little congestion, parks with trees, sports facilities, theatres, cinemas, landmarks, hot women... it is spacious, more temperate, has fewer homeless people, a lower crime rate, includes huge malls with the luxurious consumer goods, plentiful restaurants and the all important fast food delivery. The bus stops even contain small libraries! Overall it is a well designed city which offers its citizens a good quality of life. When it was built it must have looked like a city of the future. Things were done with concrete here that would make a technician friend of mine have a wet dream (KJ - you know who you are). A bit like the Jetsons meets Land of the Giants with a dash of Logan's run. You have to admire the incredible ambition and skill in accomplishing this urban miracle. It beats Milton Keynes hands down!
Flip the coin and this place is a little like a Stepford city, it's all a bit staged. One of the greatest features of any settlement is that a lot of its charm derives from its organic growth through time. Any unplanned city has an old heart at a crucial location like a bridging point (Leeds), hill (Rome), port (Rotterdam) or trading route (Petra). Brasilia's location was chosen as it's fairly central. That doesn't mean it's not in a good landscape, it is. Beautiful undulating countryside, a clement climate and a vast lake make it a great spot - it's just a bit uniform for my taste. Normally a city can be read in terms of the development radiating out from this heart, be that along a river, surrounding a hill, away from the coast or up a valley. Here everything is the same age and is all getting a bit dated. Add to this the fact to walk anywhere takes hours, literally. Everything is so spaced out with vast tracts of land between the more important buildings.
I'm not really sure if I like it or not, I think it lacks the soul to form such a strong opinion either way. There you go, an expert on the place after two nights! Maybe it's best if I shut up and let the pictures do the talking. Next entry... images only!
In its favour - Brasília is litter free, has fresh air, little congestion, parks with trees, sports facilities, theatres, cinemas, landmarks, hot women... it is spacious, more temperate, has fewer homeless people, a lower crime rate, includes huge malls with the luxurious consumer goods, plentiful restaurants and the all important fast food delivery. The bus stops even contain small libraries! Overall it is a well designed city which offers its citizens a good quality of life. When it was built it must have looked like a city of the future. Things were done with concrete here that would make a technician friend of mine have a wet dream (KJ - you know who you are). A bit like the Jetsons meets Land of the Giants with a dash of Logan's run. You have to admire the incredible ambition and skill in accomplishing this urban miracle. It beats Milton Keynes hands down!
Flip the coin and this place is a little like a Stepford city, it's all a bit staged. One of the greatest features of any settlement is that a lot of its charm derives from its organic growth through time. Any unplanned city has an old heart at a crucial location like a bridging point (Leeds), hill (Rome), port (Rotterdam) or trading route (Petra). Brasilia's location was chosen as it's fairly central. That doesn't mean it's not in a good landscape, it is. Beautiful undulating countryside, a clement climate and a vast lake make it a great spot - it's just a bit uniform for my taste. Normally a city can be read in terms of the development radiating out from this heart, be that along a river, surrounding a hill, away from the coast or up a valley. Here everything is the same age and is all getting a bit dated. Add to this the fact to walk anywhere takes hours, literally. Everything is so spaced out with vast tracts of land between the more important buildings.
I'm not really sure if I like it or not, I think it lacks the soul to form such a strong opinion either way. There you go, an expert on the place after two nights! Maybe it's best if I shut up and let the pictures do the talking. Next entry... images only!
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