Relic No. 005Catalogued
The City Drawn for Cars
- Site
- Plano Piloto, Brasília
- Era
- Built 1956 to 1960
- Material
- Concrete, superblocks, a very long axis
- Intended use
- An orderly modernist capital for about 500,000 people
- Actual use
- A capital where most people live outside the plan
- Status
- UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987
BRASÍLIA. Built in 41 months. Inaugurated 21 April 1960. Laid out in the shape of a bird, or an aeroplane, or a cross, depending on whom one asks.
The plan was for about 500,000 people. The planned core never reached it and today holds about 215,000. By 2000, two satellite towns outside the plan together held more people than the plan itself. The metropolitan area now holds about 3.5 million.
Traffic lights were later added to the great Monumental Axis, which the plan had imagined without them.
A city drawn for the car. The people walked around it.
Noted.
