Excuse the brevity on this one... there´s an article in the making!
Arrived in Brasilia in a rainstorm and asked my taxi driver to take me on a tour on the way to my hotel. The whole of the city was built in 3 years in 1960 and is one of the only cities in the world to have been built entirely with modernist principles... well I´m kind of discounting Milton Keynes in that! Shaped like a giant plane with two wings and all the commercial, shopping and government buildings in the central fuselage it faces a giant manmade lake.
The tour was a bit bizzarre, the city is a kind of intimidating with its sprawling centre and monumental buildings - it feels like its not designed for people, but to make a statement and in all its concrete beauty, that statement is looking a little shabby.
Spent the first night in my 70´s hotel room, with period marble bathroom, watching 2 movies and not wanting to go out. There had been little that I had seen that encouraged me to go exploring... but explore I did.
After the first night in a Steak house I gradually got accustomed to what this place is about. It certainly has its flaws, and huge ones at that, but is also an intriguing concept.
The buildings are made for photos and the Parliament building tops them all with it Dome and Bowl ceiling topped by two towers reaching up into the sky. I did as the tourists do and traipsed around the sights, but still didn´t get under the skin of the place. That is until I walked, and walked and walked out into the SuperQuadras on a Sunday.
The SuperQuadras are the residential areas of the city, along its wings, and although repetitive, they are green and pleasant and relaxed. I sat in a local restaurant and got a feel for the people of Brasilia who are friendly and progressive.
In fact Brazil´s country slogan kind of sums it up - it a place of Order and Progress, albeit a 60s vision of it
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