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