Do You Like Concrete? Brasília, Distrito Federal

I came to Brasília in search of nationwide data and to test a few hypotheses about federal-state relations. I can say that I won't leave completely empty-handed. I would call my week moderately productive, and I'm almost certain that I'll have less productive weeks among the next few.

I'm still tired of travel, tired of being in the field, tired of the same routine and of the same loneliness. Yet I march onward. I go running a lot, though I fear that my shoes are barely going to make it to July 3rd. (I left my new pair for Bethany to bring down then.)

Brasília, the capital of the future. Or at least a very 1950s version of the future, built for the automobile, mass urban housing, and dramatic gestures in urban planning.

Brasília, for the uninitiated, is laid out in the shape of an airplane, with the body comprising the Monumental Axis, the Esplanade of the Ministries, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the Presidential Palace, and (somewhere) a McDonald's I falled to locate. The wings of the airplane are devoted to zoned residential and commercial areas.

Everything is laid out according to a system of acronyms and numbers. I stayed in the South Wing, at superblock 705, off street W3, in CRS (Residential Center South, I think). I went to a meeting in SRTVS Quadra 701, or Sector Radio and TV South, Block 701. There are separate areas for hotels and hospitals.

There is a logic to it all, which one learns gradually. I don't actively dislike Brasília - though I actively dislike the fact that a decent hotel is out of my budget range, given that hotels are limited to Hotel Sector North and Hotel Sector South - like others do. I just think it could stand for some re-development and new planning after fifty years. It's certainly not a pedestrian-friendly city, despite the fact that cars stop at crosswalks (not always guaranteed elsewhere). Brasília would receive a Walkability Score close to zero.

To get an idea, of just how spread-out and car-friendly it is, see the following photos.





The last picture is of a diorama that's in a small underground museum near the presidential palace.

These photos are all taken within the airplane, an area known as the Pilot Plan. There are other outlying areas, but almost none are adjacent to the Pilot Plan. One has to go down a long road to reach the next developed areas. This movement out of the Pilot Plan is surprising. Normally, in Brazil, as one leaves a big city, one encounters suburbs and smaller developments that are poorer and more run down that is the center of the city. The poverty level seems to increase as you move farther from the city center, until at last you're in the countryside.

Brasília, by contrast, has among the highest wealth and development scores of any city in Brazil. And for twenty-one of its fifty years of existence, it was the site of a military dictatorship. Hence there are almost no visible slums on the outskirts. When traveling out of the city (by newly-built metro or by car), one immediately jumps from city to countryside. In Brasília's case, one jumps right from the buildings into the red-dirt cerrado, the high savannah in the middle of the country. I wish I had photos of this, but alas I was negligent in not bringing my camera along to that interview.

On the first Sunday in town, I took a walk down to the presidential palace in hopes of seeing a tour. I wore long pants, but didn't sweat too much. Although the termperature still hovered around the same 31-32 C it was in Fortaleza and Salvador, the air here is much drier. I almost miss the humidity. Almost.

Along the way, I passed the new national library, which has nothing on the old national library on Avenida Rio Branco in Rio de Janeiro. (Reminder: When Brasília became the capital, all those federal public sector employees had to move out of Rio de Janeiro. Poor them.) Coincidentally, it's named after a former governor of Rio, a master populist.



I also passed the newly-opened National Museum (the hemisphere resembling Saturn) and the Cathedral. The latter bears a striking resemblence to Space Mountain at Disneyland and Disney World, also pictured below. That's not by accident. They were built in the same era (well, Space Mountain in the 1970s), and were both designed to showcase the future of architecture. Space Mountain doesn't have stained glass.






Beyond the Cathedral lie the Ministry buildings. Each building has brass letters outside declaring which Ministries it contains. I imagine that somewhere there is a collection of giant marquee brass letters, ready for the moment the next president rearranges the ministries or creates new ones.




Also, nothing says "bureaucracy" like big concrete slabs, row after row.

The Ministries are also one of the redeeming features of Brasília, in that many of them have restaurants that are open to the public. The restaurants function mainly to feed public employees, of course, but visitors are welcome after 1:00 PM. And the food is cheap!

I visited the restaurants at the Ministry of Agriculture (R$9.46 per kilo, but no credit cards accepted) and at the Ministry of Communications and Transport (R$10.00 per kilo, credit cards accepted), the latter twice. Normally, food is R$17.99 per kilo if it's affordable, over R$20 per kilo at most places in Zona Sul in Rio, and R$30.00 or more at the mall. By contrast, the Ministries are a steal. I would like to personally thank the Brazilian people for subsidizing three lunches for me. I ate 1.38 kilos on my second visit, and 1.02 kilos on my third visit. (Go ahead, convert that to pounds.) Normally, I eat around 0.6 kilos for lunch at a restaurant, and pay more.

Numbers above fixed. Thanks to Amy in comments.

And on my walk I encountered my good friends at the Ministry of Foreign Relations! Hooray!




The building is rather beautiful. It may be a little nicer than the old Palácio Itamaraty in Rio (which I have also visited; see the posts about my visa mix-up). The contrast is between colonial and modern styles.

[On reflection, my best friends are the Federal Police; it was their mistake and slip-up that allowed me back into the country, and thus did not send me toothbrush-less and computer-less back to Argentina.]

Other bureaucratic buildings on the east end of the Axis, like Itamaraty, are more beautiful. I saw the Ministry of Justice building and wanted to jump into the fountain for a swim.



And of course there's the famous Congress. I was surprised by how close I could get to the building. The security-mad United States wouldn't dare let one duck under the awnings and walk on the grass.








At the end of my walk, I was sorely disappointed. The Presidential Palance, the Palácio do Planalto, is under refurbishment and was closed to tours. Oh well.




In conclusion, Brasília falls right about in the middle, out of all the cities I've visited. I'd come back, though I'd try to drive hard bargains to stay at a nicer hotel. I will say that I did enjoy the cheap food, and running in the Parque da Cidade.

Now to return to the Mato Grossos, but briefly.

---

Oh, and the United States can best be represented by a bacon cheeseburger. Obvio. (The US burger is available on Fridays. Other days are McAlemanha, McBrasil, McArgentina, McItália, and McEspanha.)