Brasilia: The modernist utopia photographic essay

By Adonai Rocha

Bras?lia - the modernist utopiaA photographic essay by Adonai RochaBras?lia seems the ultimate modernist fantasy: pristine, elegant, refined, and a remarkable demonstration of lucidity. These shots seem to offer a sumptuousness to that vision. The light, color and panorama provide an exoticism. The modernist utopia of a socially ambitious beauty comes unhinged, when we see in the shadow of the great civic buildings, children living amongst the trees. That this cultivated treat of Bras?lia arises or was created ex-nihilo (or out of nothing) suggests to me a certain view that the natural process of growth, in all its human messiness, is somehow corrupt.The experience of the GigaPan in viewing these images provides remarkable intimacy. At the same time I seem a voyeur. And I feel strongly compelled to experience it firsthand.Maura Doern Danko, Painter, Faculty Humanities / General Education Department The Art Institute of PittsburghHistoryInaugurated in 1960, Brasilia - the capital city of Brazil is a masterpiece of modernist architecture. It is the only city in the world built in the 20th century to be awarded (in 1987) the status of Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.Behind the construction of Bras?lia lay a monumental campaign to construct an entire new Capital City for Brazil. In 1956, Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira is elected President and ordered the construction of Bras?lia, fulfilling an article of the country's constitution dating back to 1891 stating that the capital should be moved from Rio de Janeiro to a place close to the center of the country.Kubitschek invites a young architect, Oscar Niemeyer, to command the project.In the same year, the work on site starts.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 148125524X
• ISBN13: 9781481255240
• Release Date: March 2013
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 116 Pages
• Weight: 0.49 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 8.5" x 8.5"