Brasília, Contradições de uma Cidade (1968) - full transcript
BRASILIA:
CONTRADICTIONS OF A NEW CITY
The structure of Brasilia
is formed by two large axes
that cross each other in a right angle,
the Highway Axis and the Monumental Axis.
In the design of the city,
the principles of highway construction
were applied
to the principles of urban design.
Crossing the city from end to end,
the 15 lanes of the Highway Axis
serve the residential and downtown areas.
But there is a complete separation
between vehicle traffic
and pedestrian traffic.
Cloverleafs and overpasses
eliminate road crossings.
On both sides of the Highway Axis
a continuous sequence of large
residential blocks spreads out
framed by long belts of trees.
Inside these super-blocks,
apartment buildings
are positioned in various ways,
but they follow the same pattern of
a maximum six stories resting on pillars.
Access to the residences
is gained through large open areas
located between blocks,
where the neighborhood church,
the movie theater
and small shops are located.
The shops are designed to meet local needs
and have two entrances.
One facing the parking areas
next to points of vehicle access.
The other facing
the green areas of the blocks,
with access for pedestrians only.
The super-block
is a realm of comfortable family life.
Protected from vehicular traffic,
children have ample recreation areas
and elementary schools
close to their homes.
Four super-blocks form an autonomous
unit of collective habitation,
with the convenience of a community life
including a neighborhood sports club.
In the current stage of the construction
of the city, few units are completed.
The clubs, churches and schools
that are ready today
serve more than one neighborhood unit.
In Brasilia, there is frequently conflict
between architecture and ornamentation,
between the concept of the architect
and the taste of the dweller.
There isn't much nightlife yet.
There's only one movie theater
in the residential areas today.
The entertainment center will be built
in the large areas free from traffic
on the platform formed by the crossing
of the two structural axes of the city.
Hotels, banks and office buildings
will be located nearby.
Even though the National Theater
has not been completed,
it is already in use.
The center of activity in Brasilia
spontaneously moved to route W3,
which was primarily planned
for the traffic of trucks.
Trucks are not allowed there today.
W3 works like the main street
of a small town.
This unforeseen function causes
traffic jams, so common in other cities.
The cemeteries are far from the hubbub.
They're located on both ends
of the Highway Axis...
thus preventing funeral processions
from crossing the urban center.
The cemeteries will have lawns, trees,
shallow graves and simple tombstones,
without any ostentation.
A great artificial lake
will surround the town,
in order to increase the humidity
in the dry climate of the plateau.
Brasilia was conceived to meet
not only the needs of a modern city,
but also to be the capital of the country,
with all the traits that
this function demands.
The Alvorada Palace,
the presidential residence,
was conceived by the architect
as the house of a common man,
a Brazilian chosen to run the country.
Despite its new original design,
it reproduces the architectonic principles
of the main house of a Brazilian ranch
with a porch around it and a side chapel.
Since its inauguration,
it's had several dwellers.
Five years after its foundation,
Brasilia has over 300,000 inhabitants.
Around 40,000 are civil servants.
For the higher-ranking ones,
despite the comfort of their residences,
Brasilia still is just a distant
and inconvenient workplace.
I ended up here in 1959,
with Oscar Niemeyer, a lifelong friend,
with whom I work
creating architectonic integration.
The majority of the numerous intellectuals
who went to Brasilia,
attracted by the dimension
of the human and artistic enterprise,
left the city after 230 professors
quit their jobs at the university,
during the 1965 crisis.
So that workers
from all levels of civil service
could live together
in the same neighborhood,
the apartments in Brasilia had to have
three different economic patterns.
They decided to go to Rio and São Paulo.
Since my daughter is also
a civil servant, we decided to stay...
According to the plan,
the city wouldn't be divided
into rich neighborhoods
and poor neighborhoods.
There'd be integration
instead of discrimination.
This didn't happen.
The buildings that were hurriedly built
to house those who first ventured
to come and work in Brasilia
and who then prudently came alone,
are used today by the large families
of civil servants of low income.
...a child the possibility
of going to school
and all these schools are public.
It isn't a matter of longing for the past.
We can't think it will be as it used to.
It's over.
There is no coordination
inside this structure anymore.
Students are lost because
they don't know what to do,
nor what they're looking for.
There's a bunch of lost people
walking up and down the halls,
looking for something to do
to pass the time, waiting for lunchtime.
The teachers who were hired
don't have the will...
LESS INCOMPETENCE
...to search for a new teaching methodology
that suits Brazilian conditions.
Either the school returns
to a more traditional model,
or it shuts down,
which is probably for the best.
They'll destroy all this.
The University of Brasilia,
which had been planned as the vanguard
of higher education in Brazil,
and that once achieved this position,
today, is a university like any other.
For most of its inhabitants,
Brasilia is a city like any other.
Two-thirds of the workers,
including those who built it,
live outside of Brasilia's city limits.
At the end of a three-hour trip,
the workers reach their neighborhood.
These places are known
as satellite cities or dormitory cities.
Created spontaneously,
or made by tractors
in the deserted areas around the capital,
these cities spread out horizontally,
following obsolete urban models,
the polar opposite
to the plans of Brasilia.
Coming from several different areas
of Brazil, but mainly from the Northeast,
these men brought the customs
and culture of their homeland with them.
Are you happy in Brasilia?
Do you intend to continue living here?
No, sir.
- Do you intend to leave?
- I do, sir.
Why?
Because Brasilia is no good for workers.
In Brasilia,
there are only construction companies.
These firms start construction,
and one firm opens two more firms,
joined into one single company.
When a worker is about
to complete 90 days,
they discharge him
and register him in another one.
But they're the same company.
They do that so he won't accrue benefits.
What about the union? Doesn't it help?
No, it doesn't help at all.
At least we ignore the union these days.
The union used to be strong,
but everything's changed, you know?
Workers suffered a lot
because of the union. Now they fear it.
They say “Let's join the union!”
and we say “No, sir, thank you.”
- What did you help to build here?
- I helped to build the IAPI Hospital,
the IAPI blocks and many other buildings.
Where did you live
when you were working there?
I lived in the IAPI lodging.
Why did you all leave the IAPI?
Because after we finished work
on the IAPI buildings, they fired us.
We had to move far away,
to where there was public transportation.
Why did you leave Paraíba for Brasilia?
I came because it was hard there,
and they said here it was good.
- I sold everything and came here.
- Are you okay here?
No, because my homeland is there,
and because here I have a boss.
- And where do you live here?
- I live on 42nd Street, house 23.
- In one of these little houses?
- Yes, sir.
- Which one?
- That one.
- With the tiles?
- Right.
- Is all your family there?
- No, but they're coming.
They haven't come yet
because I make very little money.
- Does everybody fit in there?
- Yes, sir.
- How many people?
- Seven.
- How many bedrooms are there?
- There are two.
- Are they big or small?
- Neither big nor small, average.
Until recently, Brasilia was the new
center of internal migration in Brazil.
During construction,
the migrant worker made five times
more money than in the North
and twice what he'd make
in Rio or São Paulo.
After the city's inauguration,
the job market plummeted.
Nevertheless, unemployed workers
preferred to stay in Brasilia.
They were poor people
with very few belongings.
Arriving here,
they'd come in those trucks called...
dump trucks.
When they got here, they'd lift the bin.
Even if there were children inside,
they'd dump them.
They'd dump everything,
wood, furniture, everything.
Those people's things were all damaged.
We knocked down the trees
with our bare hands.
We used fire, we made campfires here
so we'd be able to build our shacks.
Some people slept outside.
Kids died from cold here.
Some adults died too.
That's what happened to us.
We went to a farm to work there.
We bought the rights
to work a small plot of land
when some men appeared
saying they were the owners.
Then they sent someone to evict us,
you know?
They said they were the police
and came to arrest us.
They had machine guns.
My brother was sitting,
and I was standing by him.
They said “Don't get up!”
and he kept still.
Then they said, “Get up!” and he got up.
They searched us, and they handcuffed us,
and they pushed us and we kept quiet.
We didn't say anything.
They took everything we had,
pigs, chickens.
A lot of chickens were left there.
They took our animals,
the beans, all that we had to eat.
We worked the land
and ate the beans we grew there.
The Goiânia police took our beans.
They took it all.
And now we're here.
We don't know what to do, you know?
We don't know what to do.
Vitória de Santo Antão.
- What state?
- Pernambuco.
- Why did you leave Pernambuco?
- I couldn't make a living.
And you came to Brasilia for work?
I came to Brasilia seeking work.
- Did you come alone?
- I came with my family.
Can you show us your family in the bus?
Sure. This one is my daughter...
another daughter...
the other daughter, and my wife.
I'm 20.
- Where do you come from?
- I come from Paraíba.
- What did you do there?
- I worked at a drugstore.
- Why did you leave?
- The money wasn't good.
- Why did you come to Brasilia?
- I've come for work.
- Did you come alone?
- I came with these two fellows.
What do you think your life
will be like in Brasilia?
I don't know.
Good or bad?
I don't know if it'll be good or bad.
I don't know.
The construction of Brasilia
originated from the need
to conquer and develop
the interior of the country,
and it promises to leap ahead
of the natural process
of socioeconomic development.
The new capital was conceived
by Brazilian politicians
more than one century ago,
not only as a seat of government
that could remain distant
from public pressure,
but also as the center
of domestic integration
and a central hub of South America.
Brasilia was the great opportunity
offered to Brazilian architecture:
a whole city to be designed from the start
according to the most modern
techniques of urban design
and with absolute creative freedom.
When it expels from its bosom
the humble men who built it
and those who are yet to come,
Brasilia embodies
the basic conflict of Brazilian art,
beyond the reach
of the majority of the people.
The architects' designs
proposed a just city,
devoid of social discrimination.
But as the designs became reality,
the problems grew beyond the urban limits
within which they were
meant to be contained.
In fact, these are national problems,
present in every city in Brazil,
but in Brasilia,
a city designed with such generosity,
they are revealed with unbearable clarity.
We have to change this reality
so we can see in the face of the people,
how beautiful a city can be.
I'm Viramundo, turned upside-down
Across the hinterland
But someday I'll turn this world
Into celebration, work and bread
The world will be turned upside down
And they will see me
The transformer of this world
Shrewd, cunning and thieving
Turned upside down by the world
Which has been turned once again
Someday I'll turn this world
Into celebration, work and bread
Into celebration, work and bread
Brasilia: Contradictions of a New City
was restored using
two very discolored prints.
The original negative
could not be located.
It was possibly discarded
by its producers,
displeased with the political content
of the film.
The original film sync was maintained.
Digital 2K restoration completed
in São Paulo, December 2004.
CONTRADICTIONS OF A NEW CITY
The structure of Brasilia
is formed by two large axes
that cross each other in a right angle,
the Highway Axis and the Monumental Axis.
In the design of the city,
the principles of highway construction
were applied
to the principles of urban design.
Crossing the city from end to end,
the 15 lanes of the Highway Axis
serve the residential and downtown areas.
But there is a complete separation
between vehicle traffic
and pedestrian traffic.
Cloverleafs and overpasses
eliminate road crossings.
On both sides of the Highway Axis
a continuous sequence of large
residential blocks spreads out
framed by long belts of trees.
Inside these super-blocks,
apartment buildings
are positioned in various ways,
but they follow the same pattern of
a maximum six stories resting on pillars.
Access to the residences
is gained through large open areas
located between blocks,
where the neighborhood church,
the movie theater
and small shops are located.
The shops are designed to meet local needs
and have two entrances.
One facing the parking areas
next to points of vehicle access.
The other facing
the green areas of the blocks,
with access for pedestrians only.
The super-block
is a realm of comfortable family life.
Protected from vehicular traffic,
children have ample recreation areas
and elementary schools
close to their homes.
Four super-blocks form an autonomous
unit of collective habitation,
with the convenience of a community life
including a neighborhood sports club.
In the current stage of the construction
of the city, few units are completed.
The clubs, churches and schools
that are ready today
serve more than one neighborhood unit.
In Brasilia, there is frequently conflict
between architecture and ornamentation,
between the concept of the architect
and the taste of the dweller.
There isn't much nightlife yet.
There's only one movie theater
in the residential areas today.
The entertainment center will be built
in the large areas free from traffic
on the platform formed by the crossing
of the two structural axes of the city.
Hotels, banks and office buildings
will be located nearby.
Even though the National Theater
has not been completed,
it is already in use.
The center of activity in Brasilia
spontaneously moved to route W3,
which was primarily planned
for the traffic of trucks.
Trucks are not allowed there today.
W3 works like the main street
of a small town.
This unforeseen function causes
traffic jams, so common in other cities.
The cemeteries are far from the hubbub.
They're located on both ends
of the Highway Axis...
thus preventing funeral processions
from crossing the urban center.
The cemeteries will have lawns, trees,
shallow graves and simple tombstones,
without any ostentation.
A great artificial lake
will surround the town,
in order to increase the humidity
in the dry climate of the plateau.
Brasilia was conceived to meet
not only the needs of a modern city,
but also to be the capital of the country,
with all the traits that
this function demands.
The Alvorada Palace,
the presidential residence,
was conceived by the architect
as the house of a common man,
a Brazilian chosen to run the country.
Despite its new original design,
it reproduces the architectonic principles
of the main house of a Brazilian ranch
with a porch around it and a side chapel.
Since its inauguration,
it's had several dwellers.
Five years after its foundation,
Brasilia has over 300,000 inhabitants.
Around 40,000 are civil servants.
For the higher-ranking ones,
despite the comfort of their residences,
Brasilia still is just a distant
and inconvenient workplace.
I ended up here in 1959,
with Oscar Niemeyer, a lifelong friend,
with whom I work
creating architectonic integration.
The majority of the numerous intellectuals
who went to Brasilia,
attracted by the dimension
of the human and artistic enterprise,
left the city after 230 professors
quit their jobs at the university,
during the 1965 crisis.
So that workers
from all levels of civil service
could live together
in the same neighborhood,
the apartments in Brasilia had to have
three different economic patterns.
They decided to go to Rio and São Paulo.
Since my daughter is also
a civil servant, we decided to stay...
According to the plan,
the city wouldn't be divided
into rich neighborhoods
and poor neighborhoods.
There'd be integration
instead of discrimination.
This didn't happen.
The buildings that were hurriedly built
to house those who first ventured
to come and work in Brasilia
and who then prudently came alone,
are used today by the large families
of civil servants of low income.
...a child the possibility
of going to school
and all these schools are public.
It isn't a matter of longing for the past.
We can't think it will be as it used to.
It's over.
There is no coordination
inside this structure anymore.
Students are lost because
they don't know what to do,
nor what they're looking for.
There's a bunch of lost people
walking up and down the halls,
looking for something to do
to pass the time, waiting for lunchtime.
The teachers who were hired
don't have the will...
LESS INCOMPETENCE
...to search for a new teaching methodology
that suits Brazilian conditions.
Either the school returns
to a more traditional model,
or it shuts down,
which is probably for the best.
They'll destroy all this.
The University of Brasilia,
which had been planned as the vanguard
of higher education in Brazil,
and that once achieved this position,
today, is a university like any other.
For most of its inhabitants,
Brasilia is a city like any other.
Two-thirds of the workers,
including those who built it,
live outside of Brasilia's city limits.
At the end of a three-hour trip,
the workers reach their neighborhood.
These places are known
as satellite cities or dormitory cities.
Created spontaneously,
or made by tractors
in the deserted areas around the capital,
these cities spread out horizontally,
following obsolete urban models,
the polar opposite
to the plans of Brasilia.
Coming from several different areas
of Brazil, but mainly from the Northeast,
these men brought the customs
and culture of their homeland with them.
Are you happy in Brasilia?
Do you intend to continue living here?
No, sir.
- Do you intend to leave?
- I do, sir.
Why?
Because Brasilia is no good for workers.
In Brasilia,
there are only construction companies.
These firms start construction,
and one firm opens two more firms,
joined into one single company.
When a worker is about
to complete 90 days,
they discharge him
and register him in another one.
But they're the same company.
They do that so he won't accrue benefits.
What about the union? Doesn't it help?
No, it doesn't help at all.
At least we ignore the union these days.
The union used to be strong,
but everything's changed, you know?
Workers suffered a lot
because of the union. Now they fear it.
They say “Let's join the union!”
and we say “No, sir, thank you.”
- What did you help to build here?
- I helped to build the IAPI Hospital,
the IAPI blocks and many other buildings.
Where did you live
when you were working there?
I lived in the IAPI lodging.
Why did you all leave the IAPI?
Because after we finished work
on the IAPI buildings, they fired us.
We had to move far away,
to where there was public transportation.
Why did you leave Paraíba for Brasilia?
I came because it was hard there,
and they said here it was good.
- I sold everything and came here.
- Are you okay here?
No, because my homeland is there,
and because here I have a boss.
- And where do you live here?
- I live on 42nd Street, house 23.
- In one of these little houses?
- Yes, sir.
- Which one?
- That one.
- With the tiles?
- Right.
- Is all your family there?
- No, but they're coming.
They haven't come yet
because I make very little money.
- Does everybody fit in there?
- Yes, sir.
- How many people?
- Seven.
- How many bedrooms are there?
- There are two.
- Are they big or small?
- Neither big nor small, average.
Until recently, Brasilia was the new
center of internal migration in Brazil.
During construction,
the migrant worker made five times
more money than in the North
and twice what he'd make
in Rio or São Paulo.
After the city's inauguration,
the job market plummeted.
Nevertheless, unemployed workers
preferred to stay in Brasilia.
They were poor people
with very few belongings.
Arriving here,
they'd come in those trucks called...
dump trucks.
When they got here, they'd lift the bin.
Even if there were children inside,
they'd dump them.
They'd dump everything,
wood, furniture, everything.
Those people's things were all damaged.
We knocked down the trees
with our bare hands.
We used fire, we made campfires here
so we'd be able to build our shacks.
Some people slept outside.
Kids died from cold here.
Some adults died too.
That's what happened to us.
We went to a farm to work there.
We bought the rights
to work a small plot of land
when some men appeared
saying they were the owners.
Then they sent someone to evict us,
you know?
They said they were the police
and came to arrest us.
They had machine guns.
My brother was sitting,
and I was standing by him.
They said “Don't get up!”
and he kept still.
Then they said, “Get up!” and he got up.
They searched us, and they handcuffed us,
and they pushed us and we kept quiet.
We didn't say anything.
They took everything we had,
pigs, chickens.
A lot of chickens were left there.
They took our animals,
the beans, all that we had to eat.
We worked the land
and ate the beans we grew there.
The Goiânia police took our beans.
They took it all.
And now we're here.
We don't know what to do, you know?
We don't know what to do.
Vitória de Santo Antão.
- What state?
- Pernambuco.
- Why did you leave Pernambuco?
- I couldn't make a living.
And you came to Brasilia for work?
I came to Brasilia seeking work.
- Did you come alone?
- I came with my family.
Can you show us your family in the bus?
Sure. This one is my daughter...
another daughter...
the other daughter, and my wife.
I'm 20.
- Where do you come from?
- I come from Paraíba.
- What did you do there?
- I worked at a drugstore.
- Why did you leave?
- The money wasn't good.
- Why did you come to Brasilia?
- I've come for work.
- Did you come alone?
- I came with these two fellows.
What do you think your life
will be like in Brasilia?
I don't know.
Good or bad?
I don't know if it'll be good or bad.
I don't know.
The construction of Brasilia
originated from the need
to conquer and develop
the interior of the country,
and it promises to leap ahead
of the natural process
of socioeconomic development.
The new capital was conceived
by Brazilian politicians
more than one century ago,
not only as a seat of government
that could remain distant
from public pressure,
but also as the center
of domestic integration
and a central hub of South America.
Brasilia was the great opportunity
offered to Brazilian architecture:
a whole city to be designed from the start
according to the most modern
techniques of urban design
and with absolute creative freedom.
When it expels from its bosom
the humble men who built it
and those who are yet to come,
Brasilia embodies
the basic conflict of Brazilian art,
beyond the reach
of the majority of the people.
The architects' designs
proposed a just city,
devoid of social discrimination.
But as the designs became reality,
the problems grew beyond the urban limits
within which they were
meant to be contained.
In fact, these are national problems,
present in every city in Brazil,
but in Brasilia,
a city designed with such generosity,
they are revealed with unbearable clarity.
We have to change this reality
so we can see in the face of the people,
how beautiful a city can be.
I'm Viramundo, turned upside-down
Across the hinterland
But someday I'll turn this world
Into celebration, work and bread
The world will be turned upside down
And they will see me
The transformer of this world
Shrewd, cunning and thieving
Turned upside down by the world
Which has been turned once again
Someday I'll turn this world
Into celebration, work and bread
Into celebration, work and bread
Brasilia: Contradictions of a New City
was restored using
two very discolored prints.
The original negative
could not be located.
It was possibly discarded
by its producers,
displeased with the political content
of the film.
The original film sync was maintained.
Digital 2K restoration completed
in São Paulo, December 2004.