Brasilia, Some Food and a Clown

If you fly over the middle of Brazil in late September and look out your window, you will see a vast desert-like landscape known as the Central Plateau. A deep reddish-orange ocean of soil with patches of yellow grass, with the hues slightly subdued by a thin layer of haze fills the entirety of your view. With the exception of a few small settlements and rivers, the area is mostly empty. Yet, if peering out the window at the right moment, one might see a giant cross etched into the earth, with the horizontal line of the cross arcing slightly upward. This vision is in fact the capital of Brazil – Brasilia.

It is difficult to not talk about architecture when in the city of Brasilia. It is perhaps the most holistic attempt to implement an architectural and social utopian modern ideology in one location, both at the scale of individual buildings and the urban plan. Despite the jargon, it is very significant not only to architecture nerds, but to anyone who thinks twice about how contemporary cities, cultures and societies are made – that is, how the civilization continues trying to plan its growth and everyday life despite the capriciousness of life. So, bear with me as I give you the brief. Later, I intend to share some fruit, of which there is plenty.



Up until 1763, the original capital of Brazil was Salvador, the afro-Brazilian mecca in the northeast that I am currently visiting. The capital was later relocated to Rio de Janeiro and then in 1960 to its final location, Brasilia. For a long time in Brazil, there had been a dream to relocate the capital to the interior of the country so as to create a major, centralized hub for the country and to stoke the national economy. To put this into perspective, imagine shifting Washington D.C. to Omaha, Nebraska – a pretty radical idea, and no less one based solely on location. The idea to relocate the Brazilian capital was first introduced in 1823, and continually reappeared in politics until its realization in the late 1950s by President Juscelino Kubitschek (don’t bother pronunciating – its easier just to say the letters JK, in Portuguese - ZHO-ta KAA). His entire political campaign was based on the vision of Brazil’s future embodied in the plan of Brasilia – to modernize both physically and socially. He was elected and the city was built.



As previously mentioned, the plan of the city is essentially a large cross. The vertical axis, or line, is called the ‘monumental axis’. This enormous corridor houses the national government, a theater, an art museum, a cathedral, a library, the local bus station and the TV Tower, among other structures. It all feels and looks just as the name suggests – monumental. The buildings are all bold individual forms, sculpted from white-painted concrete and many with large areas of glass, all neatly organized along an immense void that few people care to traverse. The horizontal axis on the other hand is comprised of the asas, or wings. From the center, this area includes the hotel sectors, commercial sectors and residential sectors. To an extent, the organization of the city is not unlike the contemporary American city; all of the functions of the city are deliberately separated from one another (residence, work, recreation, shopping), many people drive from one place to another and there appears to be a large, sustained middle class, a characteristic not common of every Brazilian city.

The residential areas are composed of giant city blocks called superquadras, or quadras. The denser blocks hold up to nine residential blocks, which are bold, rectangular apartment blocks ranging anywhere from three to six stories, all lifted off the ground via pilotis, or columns. The remaining space within the blocks is simply empty, functioning either as parking or ‘park’. The spatial qualities of these spaces are not that unlike the “projects” in the United States, but the socio-economic demographic is not. Supporting these neighborhoods are small streets with shops and restaurants. A few long boulevards lined with light commercial business run the entire length of the wings, separating the dense quadras from the less populated ones that are organized more like a street with houses packed on either side. If one were to cut a section through one of the wings, it would first illustrate the tall blocks within the quadras with open space in the middle (a greater, more public scale of space), then a boulevard (the light commercial zones), and finally the small-scale houses only two stories in height (a smaller, more intimate scale of space).

It is a lot of description, and one could go on for hundreds of pages (as some have) describing the nuances of this place. We, however, must move on. Before doing so it is important to note the complete control of the city the planner Lucio Costa and architect Oscar Niemeyer had in the creation of the city. Nearly every scale, function and aesthetic was pre-determined for the sake of a larger vision of social and economic advancement. Brasilia was simultaneously a challenge and a hope for the future of Brazil. It has a very important place in the ongoing history of modern architecture and in larger discussions about how we prepare for the future. For more, please visit the other blog, which I hope to release in a week or more. There are also some good books and essays out there as well.

With architecture down the gullet, let us talk food. Some of you may recall that my older brother Dustin and my mother are both professional cooks. On a bad day, either one of them can put you on your knees with a bologna sandwich. I on the other hand, could kill you with one. The point here being that I will do my best to describe some interesting foods here, but I only pretend to be a foodie. I lack the knowledge and skill of a cook or and the sophistication of any connoisseur.



Feijoada is the national dish of Brazil. It includes white rice (arroz branco), black beans (feijão preto) and all the parts of a pig Americans do not eat regularly. The beans and pork is more or less a stew and is served with the rice (as everything is) and is often accompanied with farofa, a flour made from the root cassava, or mandioca, or manioc (all the same thing - you can visit wikipedia for this one). My new friend Guilherme invited me to a Saturday afternoon party centered around feijoada. Friends and family get together and drink, sing, dance and eat multiple rounds of feijoada. It is like the American barbeque with a wonderful Brazilian twist.



I snagged this cup of caldo de cana (sugar cane juice) from a local vendor. With gears and belts turning and the motor humming, this thing chews up the raw sugar cane and spits it out as a green liquid. It tastes like pure liquid sugar with strong hints of grass and dirt. It sounds terrible and may be an acquired taste, but I kind of liked its earthy flavor. However, I could not finish it because of its sweetness.

Frutas:



Brazilians eat an enormous amount of fruit everyday with every meal. This includes mangos, strawberries, apples, oranges, bananas, papaya, guava, kiwi, pineapple, caju, jaboticaba, passionfruit, tamarind, pears, peaches, watermelon and so on. I have eaten so much fruit that even my armpits reek of vitamins. Here are a few fruits I find tasty or at least interesting.

Jaboticaba

This fruit is more or less a tropical version of the grape. There is a thin, non-porous exterior skin protecting the flesh and seed inside. The exterior is a dark purple tone while the inside is a white, creamy texture. It has a very tropical flavor, like coco or pineapple, but certainly unlike anything I have ever had. I bought mine from an old farmer on a street corner in Ouro Preto, but I found many vendors selling the fruit in Brasilia as well.



Goiaba

Known as guava in the states, the goiaba has three edible parts: the skin, the fleshy core filled with hard seeds, and the layer between the two. The exterior green, non porous and has a strong scent to it. It is very intense to eat, as its intensity is may comparable to an orange’s flesh to its rind. The interior fleshy core is filled with edible hard seeds and tastes a bit like strawberries. The middle layer is unencumbered by the seeds, but also the intensity of the skin. This is my favorite part, but there is little of it. (my picture wasn't that pretty, so i borrowed this one via google)



Caju

This is by far my favorite fruit as of yet. It is the fruit of the cashew nut and has an intense aroma that is like its flavor, both bitter and sweet with citrus and tropical scents. The texture of the flesh is very unusual; I can only think to describe it as similar to a gummy bear, but juicier, lighter and more easily broken apart. After the initial release of juice, the fruit sucks up all the moisture in your mouth and dries it out, suddenly achieving tartness. It is often eaten on its own or as a juice. The owner of the pousada in Brasilia, Vagda introduced me when I was sick and I have been hooked ever since. Nutritionally, I am told it has 10 times the amount of Vitamin C that an orange does.



Just like our mother’s told us, it is generally unwise to take candy from strangers, especially if the person dresses like a scary clown, or in Brazil, like a palhaço (pa-LYAA-so). Sometimes though, you just have to make an exception. Case in point, this man just happened to be taking a break from peddling candy at a stoplight from outside my pousada and was kind enough to clear the beer cans from around his feet, put his nose back on and offer this beauty for the price of three suckers. The resulting nightmares I have endured and the 50 centavos I parted with were worth it.



Around Brasilia…

Praça dos Três Poderes


Library at the University of Brasilia (UNB)


Cathedral of Brasilia


National Museum


Commercial Sector

The Age of Exploration

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Brazil currently has a population of over 190 million people, making it the fifth most populous country in the world (the U.S. is third). Yet, as it turns out just seven people in this beautiful country speak English fluently. Stranger yet, I have already met three of them, two here in Brasilia.

If you were awake in your World History class back in high school, you might recall the Age of Exploration/Enlightenment, a period during the Renaissance in which explorers from the most powerful western European nations at the time set out to sea in a search of new trading routes and whatever they could find along the way, like maybe another continent or two, aka the New World. Among these explorers, was Pedro Alvares Cabral. Yeah, nobody remembers him because our brains are saturated with Columbus, with maybe a smidgen of Magellan and even Vasco de Gama, but it turns out this Portuguese commander was the first European explorer to “discover” a portion of the enormous area that is now Brazil. Just prior to this in 1494, the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the New World between the Spanish and the Portuguese before anyone really had any idea what this actually included. The imperial nations of Europe just wanted ownership and thus drew up whatever maps they could so as to lay claim and get on with capitalist endeavors. They drew the entire world again and again, constantly changing their maps with incoming information. Each time the New World was divided up on the map and then someone would go looking for what they just sketched. Under the treaty, the Portuguese more or less received the territory of Brazil and everything else was Spanish territory. And so Cabral verified the land was actually there and later in 1531, the Portuguese began to colonize the area. Despite battles with the French and Dutch early on, they maintained control over the area until 1822 when Brazil became an independent nation. Thus, the native language of Brazil is in fact Brazilian Portuguese and not Spanish, French, Dutch or English for that matter. Now consider the size of Brazil, both its geography and population. That’s a lot of Brazilian Portuguese spoken, just not by me.


São Paulo, SP, Brazil

I arrived in São Paulo, Brazil Saturday, September 28. The next day I moved on to Ouro Preto (“black gold”) a little colonial town in the state of Minas Gerais. After a week of study I then found a bus to Belo Horizonte. A couple of days later I then took another bus to Brasilia where I am currently sleeping off my first of what I hope to be my last of foreign fevers. No, it is not malaria.


Ouro Preto, MG, Brazil

Later I intend to share some of Ouro Preto, but one day in Belo Horizonte is fresh in my mind. B.H. (pronounced “beh-ah-gah”), as the locals refer to it, is the capital of Minas Gerais state in Brazil. It is the first planned, modern Brazilian city and the touted by some as the biggest party town in Brazil. One of its other notable characteristic I learned from a 45 year old world traveler/sailor from Austin, Texas: according to various sources, including Maxim magazine, B.H. has a woman to man ratio equaling somewhere between 4:1 and 9:1, but I digress.

To the north of central B.H. is the district of Pampulha (pronounced pam-pool-yah). In this suburb for the middle and upper classes, world-renown Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer designed several buildings including the Igreja de São Francisco de Assis, the Museu de Arte de Belo Horizonte and Casa do Baile, all around an artificial lake. Of significance to my studies, the development of the district is sort of a precedent to the impossible democratic ideologies sought through the design and construction Brasilia, the capital of Brazil where I am now. It was my goal to see all of these significant pieces of architecture in Pampulha and return just in time to grab some highly acclaimed Brazilian-Mexican tacos before making my way to Brasilia.


Igreja de São Francisco de Assis
Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil

Early Sunday morning I headed to Praça do Pilar, the plaza from which buses to Pampulha leave regularly. On the way, I walked through a Sunday market to peek at all the cheap clothes, sunglasses and beef amassed in one closed off stretch of road. I would have liked to stick around, but some of the attractions at Pampulha close early, so I grabbed some agua de coco and was on my way. Upon my arrival in the plaza, a kind old man with a bandage around his head helped confirm which bus traveled to Pampulha. I boarded and we arrived about thirty minutes later.


Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil

The Pampulha complex is not grand. The lake was once polluted, but now the banks are lined people fishing, trying their best to catch I don’t know what. The church and other Niemeyer masterpieces were never used for their original purposes and now just function as “attractions” that few people want or can afford to visit. Behind the church was a small carnival and plaza with zebra-stripped donkeys and sloth-speed motorized jeeps for kids to ride around in. It became clear the real reason people come to Pampulha is futebol, which is of course soccer. There are two huge concrete stadiums, Mineirão and Mineirinho immediately adjacent to one another and the lots surrounding them are filled with spectators sipping on Skol and Brahma, the Budweiser and Miller of Brazil. From what I gather, few people want to see another dysfunctional Niemeyer building, but nearly every brasileiro wants to watch futebol.

I spent some time at the church just before it closed and really enjoyed it, particularly the large sliding glass doors that open the inside of the church out onto the waterfront. The paintings within the church, São Francisco and Via Sacra by Candido Portinari, were perhaps the most interesting. It all reeks terribly of Le Corbusier, as it should. Niemeyer collaborated with him, but understanding the assimilation and scale of affect modern architecture had in Brazil is another story (see Rotch website later). It was time to move on, so I stumbled up to the other side of the plaza across from the zebra-donkeys where I had seen some of those jitneys making a stop.



I waited and waited at the stop as multiple buses raced past me. Eventually one stopped and I was able to ask a family getting off how to get to the museum. They in turn asked the bus driver who replied, “Cinqueta e dois”, number 52. Another twenty minutes passed with two 52s turning up a street just before reaching me. Slowly learning from this, I headed up this road into a residential area, stopped confounded by the complete absence of all life on the street, including buses, but foraged on. Eventually I turned left, and then another left which arced back to my original location. Thirty minutes had passed without the site of the 52 and now I was sweating and a little frustrated. I approached an old vendor back down by the church, “Onde esta Onibus numero cinquenta e dois?” He pointed about thirty feet up the street. As it turns out, the same place the first bus dropped me off is where bus 52 also stops.

It was another twenty minute wait for the bus, but I was happy to be on my way. Two teenage boys, acne and all were manning the bus, one driving and the other collecting two reais (Brazilian dollars) from each passenger. The bus was packed, but as we ventured further away from the church it cleared up and I took a seat in the back. I was gazing out the window, recalling the shape of the artificial lake. When looking at a map, the lake resembles a giant amoeba with elongated appendages, so one can imagine using the body of water as an orienting device is somewhat impractical, but I could tell we were headed further and further away. One would assume that if we were rounding the lake at some point you have to hit another appendage, but we never did. After figuring we were traveling to yet another suburb and still further from English, I approached the drivers and asked if this bus was headed to the museum. “Ele pára em Museu de Arte de Belo Horizonte?” Confused because my Portuguese is incomprehensible to anyone who can speak the language, the kids just stared. So I pointed to the museum in my tourist guide and now they looked as if they had never heard of the place, this supposed cultural institution in the capital of Minas Gerais. Then I guess they figured it out. “(something, something, something in Portuguese)”, they replied and nodded. About thirty minutes to the museum.

The bus hit a straight away and the driver floored it. Bus drivers, well all drivers in Brazil are insane. It is my personal belief that the country may in fact be home to the worst, most fearless and confident drivers in the world. The kid was rallying the bus so fast and we hit the bumps so hard that even his bleached, gelled hair-helmet jolted a little. A corner came up fast; we decelerated and eventually came to a complete stop around the bend.

“(something, something)”, said the driver to the cashier.
“(something, something, something)”, he replied.

The engine was turned off and they both hopped out for a look. They reviewed the status of the front left wheel, the rear left wheel and then under the hood. Now, I don’t claim to know anything about cars except for maybe the cooling system in my Subaru, but when they grabbed a small, phillips-head screwdriver from beneath the seat to fix the type of problems they were potentially investigating, I knew something was wrong.

For the next half hour the kids got in and out of the bus, turning it on and off, cranking the steering wheel and debating with a couple of older men on the bus about the problem. At some point the driver appeared stating that another bus was on its way. A relief, but we waited in an intensifying afternoon heat. My back started sticking to the pleather seat covers and a few left the bus seeking water. And then just as people started to break down, miraculously another 52 arrived. Everyone anxiously scurried off and headed toward the doors of the other bus. We started to board when the driver of this bus said, “(something, something in Portuguese)”, which more or less translated to “Get off this bus! This bus is broken. Go back to your bus! It works.”

What? So, our bus broke down, another bus came to pick us up, but broke down too and then by the hand of God (or a screwdriver) our bus was suddenly fixed and now we were picking up these passengers? Fair enough, anything to move on. Everyone boarded and we continued.

Ten minutes down the road we slowed quickly until we were just barely creeping along. Just outside my window was a man with a semi-automatic rifle, standing next to an ambulance, lights still flashing and with the front smashed in, then a car resting on its head, billowing smoke and finally a couple of armed policemen. We traveled three more blocks when blondie looked in his rearview mirror and nodded, “Yep, its time to go”. The cashier escorted me off the bus, pointed in a general direction back toward the chaos we had just passed and sent me on my way. I only understood one thing from his rapid-fire Portuguese. “No retornar.” No return.

Another twenty minutes of walking (away from the chaos) and I managed to find the lake and then the museum, only to find out it was empty and closed until October 17. No buses go to the museum, a reflection of the apparent lack of simplified and integral infrastructure found in many Brazilian cities. I took a taxi back to the church, the bus back to Praça do Pilar and got out of town on the overnight bus to Brasilia. No tacos for me.


And for dessert, a little Ouro Preto:

Praça Tiradentes, Ouro Preto

public fountain, Ouro Preto

Matriz Nossa Senhora da Conceicão

Igreja São Francisco de Paula

Welcome

This website is the blog covering my day-to-day experiences as I travel across the world. The Rotch Travelling Scholarship Committee kindly awarded me the long-standing fellowship as an opportunity to broaden my exposure to architecture. For more information about the program and this year's design competition, please visit www.rotchscholarship.org. My website will include personal experiences from all the countries I intend to visit in the next 8 to 9 months through this program: Brazil (3 months), Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, China (3 months), Japan and South Korea. A more academic blog will be linked to the Rotch website at the end of this month and will be updated monthly.

Thank you for taking the time to visit the blog. I hope you enjoy it.