Excellent photos from Brasilia - 50 years ago and today
If you've never seen Brasilia, you're missing something. Over just 41 months, from 1956 onwards, the city was not so much "built" as "terraformed" to create a City of the Future, right in the centre of the country, up in the "cerrado" plains. Vast in scale, with nothing much for hundreds of kilometres in every direction, the city is built around man-made hills, a huge lake and a spectacular bridge. From the air, the city plan is shaped like an aeroplane. Brasilia was born when Juscelino Kubitschek enacted an article in the country's constitution dating back to 1891, stating that the city's capital should be moved to the interior, away from the overcrowded coasts.
It's one my favourite places - a unique, retro-futuristic spaceport of pure modernist architecture. It feels more like Orbit City, (residence of George Jetson Esq.) than the legislative and administrative capital of a country that's still largely agricultural. The Star Wars-like buildings all emerged from the imagination of one genius, Oscar Niemeyer, back in the early 60s. Still alive today, living high above Copacabana beach, he's 100 years old, still a staunch communist, and one of my heros. His work makes me remember a future we never found that looks a lot cooler than the one we have today.
The 2010 pics were taken by my awesome friend, Leonardo Wen.
Extra awesomeness points for the fabulous swipe-across javascript effect that lets you slide between "then" and "now" images. Great interaction design.
More wonderful pics of Brasilia's architecture from Cladio Marcio.
