| Brasília was built to be the capital of Brazil, an idea that first arose in 1823 as a way to guarantee the country’s safety against possible attacks to its ports and also as a way to develop Brazil’s heartland. This idea was reinforced when Dom Bosco (an Italian saint born in 1815, founder of the Salesian Order) had a prophetic dream in 1883 that a city was going to be built between parallels 15 and 20 “in a long and wide depression, in the vicinity of a lake” (Brasilia’s current location). |
| In 1891 and 1948 committees were sent to study the Central Plateau of Brazil and in 1955 the president Juscelino Kubitschek won the presidential election with the promise of building the new city. The committees had already defined an independent area within the state of Goias for that purpose, and that small square was named the “Federal District” (Distrito Federal). This new “state” is comprised of the main city of Brasilia (“Plano Piloto” – Pilot Plan) and the surroundings areas (“Cidades-Satélites” – Satellite towns). |
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| Two people were responsible for Brasilia’s design: the urban planner Lucio Costa and the architect Oscar Niemeyer. They intended that every element – from the layout of the residential and administrative districts (often compared to the shape of a bird in flight) to the symmetry of the buildings themselves should be in harmony with the city's overall design. The official buildings, in particular, are innovative and imaginative. |
| They designed the city in the form of an airplane, with two axles crossing in a straight angle. The left segment of the city is called the “South Wing” (Asa Sul), and the right segment the “North Wing” (Asa Norte). The central axle, or the body of the airplane, is called the “Monumental Axle” (Eixo Monumental), and it extends 16 Km. On its eastern side, they placed the public and the Federal Government buildings. At the crossing of the axles is the city’s central bus station, and a little above, the TV tower. On the western side, there are the Federal District’s government buildings. |
| Brasilia was inaugurated as a city on April 21, 1960. Years later, in 1987, Brasilia was declared by UNESCO as part of the World Heritage, for it was considered “a landmark in the history of town planning”. |
| Shifting the capital from Rio de Janeiro to the heartland was actually quite an old idea. Hipólito Joseó da Costa was supportive of it at the turn of the previous century. José Bonifácio presented a bill to the Constitutional Assembly of 1823, which was to be dissolved by Dom Pedro I (Emperor of Brazil). All Constitutional Assemblies held after the Republic (1891, 1934, 1937 and 1946) had provisions for the change. |
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