Planning ideas in post-Brasilia Brazil

Abstract

Which ideas shaped the town planning practice in Brazil after the construction of Brasilia? To answer this question, four important facts in the country’s planning history are explored: the establishment of the Municipal Institute of Research and Town Planning in Curitiba in the mid-1960s; the creation new towns along the Transamazonian Highway in the early 1970s; the Seminars on Urban Design held in Brasilia in the early 1980s; and the construction of Palmas in 1989, the last capital city planned in 20th century Brazil. Brasilia (1957-1960) was planned during the democratic period, but its initial development is strongly linked to the dictatorial regime (1964-1986). The new towns later implemented in the Amazon by the federal government, adopted the rationalist urban layout, again endorsing the national- building discourse. In contrast, the pragmatic urban proposals implemented in Curitiba were in line with the postmodernist rationale. The criticism of the modernist town planning was more emphatically expressed when the first of the Seminars on Urban Design was held. Nevertheless, the layout of Palmas, a city planned in the re-democratization, postmodernist period, still emulated features of Brasilia. The framing of this ambivalent panorama is a much-needed contribution to the country’s recent planning history.