Brasilia

Monday 30th May 1988

I arrived early in Brasília at the Rodoferroviária which was initially planned in 1956 as a state-of-the-art railway station on the Brasília extension of the Goiás Railroad, in place of the former Vera Cruz Airport in Brasilia. It was inaugurated in 1976 as a station, but due to the low use by passengers, it was reopened in 1981 and was also an interstate Bus Station, and is called Rodoferroviária de Brasília.

Brasília is the federal capital of Brazil and seat of government of the Federal District. The city is located atop the Brazilian highlands in the country's centre-western region. It was founded on April 21, 1960, to serve as the new national capital.

The Tourist Information Office was useless, but I found out that I needed to get a bus to the Rodoviária in the centre for 45 Cruzados. Central hotels were expensive at more than 2,200 Cruzados for a room, so I took Bus 700 to the nearby suburb of Taguatinga for 55 Cruzados.

By around 1749, near the Córrego Cortado, appeared a small settlement, formed by pioneers and drovers who sought to establish allotments in the Captaincy of Goiás, this was the first landing of the white man in the land of the future city of Taguatinga previously occupied by indigenous macro-Ge linguistic branch, as acroás, the xacriabás, the xavantes, the kayapos, the javaés, etc. However, some of these adventurers settled, excited by the possibility of gold and diamonds, near the Cut.

To contain the constant invasions on land near the new capital, the city Taguatinga was created on June 5, 1958, on land which previously belonged to the Farm Taguatinga. Initially, the city was called "Villa Sarah Kubitschek" but then its name was changed to "Santa Cruz de Taguatinga", leaving only "Taguatinga". Often it is called by locals simply "Taguá".

The consolidation of the city took place much later, almost two centuries after this period, mainly generated by large populations attracted by the construction of Brasília. It was the beginning of settlement then the first satellite city of Brasília.

In Taguatinga I got a room in the Hotel Globo for 500 Cruzados as the recommended Hotel São Paulo was closed. At the hotel I met a Brazilian who was now an Australian citizen from Perth. He explained that the reason that all of the shops were closed, and the city was so dead was because it was a Bank Holiday for Memorial Day. Super!

I needed to change up some travellers cheques so he suggested that I try the Hotel Nacional, the most luxurious hotel in the centre, for cambio (money exchange). I took the bus back to the Eixo (the centre).

The city of Brasília was designed in the shape of an aeroplane (or a drawn bow and arrow, or “like a bird flying eternally free”!). The Rodoviária was at the centre where the residential wings join the body. All of the government ministries and parliamentary functions are in the nose area and the Rodoferroviária is at the tail.

The city is located at the top of the Brazilian highlands in the country's Central-West region. It was founded by President Juscelino Kubitschek on 21 April 1960, to serve as the new national capital. Brasília is estimated to be Brazil's third-most populous city. Among major Latin American cities, it has the highest GDP per capita.

Brasília was a planned city developed by Lúcio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer and Joaquim Cardozo in 1956 in a scheme to move the capital from Rio de Janeiro to a more central location. The landscape architect was Roberto Burle Marx.

The city's design divides it into numbered blocks as well as sectors for specified activities, such as the Hotel Sector, the Banking Sector, and the Embassy Sector. Brasília was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 due to its modernist architecture and uniquely artistic urban planning.

At the exclusive Hotel Nacional, I changed $100 US dollars at the mediocre rate of 200 Cruzados to the $US dollar and was informed that there was a City Tour leaving at 14:00 hrs. at a cost of 1,600 Cruzados. This was a good idea because the city boasts that it is only 40% buildings and 60% open space, so everything is separated by a vast area of red earth gamely trying to support grass and dotted with hardy trees.

Before the tour started I had time to go to the Rodoferroviária de Brasília to get a ticket to Cuiabá for tomorrow at noon for 2,960 Cruzados. Cuiabá is the capital city of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. It serves as the Geographical Centre of South America and forms the metropolitan area of the state, along with the neighbouring town of Várzea Grande. The city was founded in 1719, during the gold rush, it has been the state capital since 1818.

We drove through the sterile commercial, banking and residential sectors in a half-empty tourist coach. Most of the workers had gone elsewhere for the Bank Holiday weekend so it was pretty much deserted.

Our first stop was at a small mediocre chapel with a modern design which boasted to be the first building to be inaugurated in Brasília. The next stop was at The Santuário Dom Bosco or St. Dom Bosco’s Sanctuary, the only building that I really liked in the capital city. It was built in 1963 and from the outside it looked like a dull blockhouse.

However, inside it was fantastic. Santuário Dom Bosco is made of 80 concrete columns that support 7400 pieces of illuminated Murano glass, symbolizing a starry sky, which cast a blue submarine glow over the pews. The central chandelier weighs 2.5 tons and adds an amazing 435 light bulbs’ worth of energy to the monthly electricity bill. It was designed by the famous architect Oscar Niemeyer.

All the walls were made up of panels of sky blue through to black glass with clear dots of unstained glass to represent stars. A pink panel of glass at each corner admitted sufficient daylight to keep the church sufficiently light. A huge crucifix of wood dominated the stage. In the interior of the sanctuary the blue hued light made you feel like you were in a huge fish tank or aquarium.

The coach drove on down passed the skeletal TV tower and the sports section with the Estádio Nacional de Brasília Mané Garrincha, also known as Estádio Nacional Mané Garrincha, Estádio Nacional de Brasília, Arena Mané Garrincha or simply Mané Garrincha, which is a football stadium and multipurpose arena.

We arrived at the headquarters of the Brazilian Army Headquarters where the huge, echoing entrance portal was made in the form of a cutlass handguard. We saw the tomb and memorial museum of President Juscelino Kubitschek, the father of Brasília, in a white, cut-off pyramid along the central Eixo Monumental near the tip of the arrow.

Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira (12th September 1902 to 22nd August 1976), known also by his initials JK, was a prominent Brazilian politician who served as the 21st president of Brazil from 1956 to 1961. His term was marked by economic prosperity and political stability, being most known for the construction of a new capital, Brasília.

We went on to see a lot of the buildings designed by Oscar Niemeyer, including the cathedral which represents a crown of thorns, the various ministries and government buildings around the “Three Powers Square” and the Presidential Palace. The Catedral Metropolitana de Brasília is a hyperboloid structure constructed from 16 concrete columns, weighing 90 tons each.

The Palácio da Alvorada is the President of Brazil’s official residence since the inauguration of Juscelino Kubitschek. The Palace is situated on a peninsula that overlooks the Paranoa lake.

The Three Powers Square, or Praça dos Três Poderes in Portuguese, is named after its surroundings being the three governmental powers of Brazil: the Executive, represented by the presidential office (Palácio do Planalto); the Legislative, represented by the National Congress (Congresso Nacional); and the Judiciary, represented by the Federal Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal).

Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho (15th December 1907 to 5th December 2012), known as Oscar Niemeyer was a Brazilian architect considered to be one of the key figures in the development of modern architecture.

Niemeyer was best known for his design of civic buildings for Brasília, a planned city that became Brazil's capital in 1960, as well as his collaboration with other architects on the headquarters of the United Nations in New York. His exploration of the aesthetic possibilities of reinforced concrete was highly influential in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

I found none of these buildings overly impressive and the whole city had a sterile, futuristic “1984” feel about it. People lived in blocks in sectors. There were no road names, only numbers and letters, so the address of my hotel was CNB4 Lote 1.

I took a bus back to Taguatinga and had a huge chicken risotto in a Chinese Restaurant near the hotel before going to bed early at 19:00 hrs. I had to wage war on the resident mosquitos before retiring, and once again when I awoke at 02:00 hrs. to their infuriating humming.