Kathleen
May 12, 2014
Brasilia was completely conceived of and constructed in the 1950’s to replace Rio as the capital and act as a uniting factor for the different regions of Brazil. This was the brain child of President Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira (Generally referred to as JK for obvious reasons) and architect Oscar Niemeyer. It is an interesting completely designed city, with vast boulevards and funky buildings, but a lot of concrete and no infrastructure whatsoever for pedestrians.
It is interesting that every type of activity has its own specific zone or zones (for example North Hotel Zone, South Hotel Zone, East Sports Area, West Sports area, etc.) but also confusing that there is no good means to get from the hotel areas to the main tourist attractions which are mainly the government buildings. There is a metro line in Brasilia, but it doesn’t really serve the tourism infrastructure. There is an army of busses serving the different areas, but the whole system is a bit daunting. We found ourselves walking from site to site, but risking life and limb to run across highway on and off ramps and many busy roads that simply had no crosswalks.
There are 2.5 Million people living and working in Brasilia. The surrounding hills and lakes are lovely if possibly a bit underutilized. We were glad to have had the opportunity to visit Brasilia, but it wasn’t really the sort of place we thought we would like to live.
