TWO BRAZILIAN CAPITALS: ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM IN RIO DE JANEIRO AND BRASILIA

Credit Hours: 3 · Graduate

Course Catalog Description This course focuses on reconstructing the social and spatial evolution of two Brazilian capitals, on founded on March 1, 1565, i.e., Rio de Janeiro, and the other inaugurated on April 21, 1960, i.e., Brasilia. While any such a reconstruction inevitably touches on historiography, economics, society, and politics, we will focus on the physical design of these two cities, i.e., aspect of the built environment that can be categorized as art. By examining the visual record of these two cities (i.e., maps, paintings, prints, photographs, film, and architectural/urban projects), we will investigate relationships between ever-changing social, political, and physical morphologies, in light of persistent urban reinvention, topographic remodeling, and land reclamation. Of particular interest to the course is the visual documentation that recorded how social relations shaped the urban landscape and conversely how the city’s built domain impacted the lives of its inhabitants. The course’s methodology will be visual, therefore, considering: 1) Rio’s historical transformations (as a colonial outpost or vice-regal, royal, imperial, federal, and state capital) have always been recorded in maps, paintings, prints, photographs, films, and architectural/urban projects; and 2) The expedition reports of 19th century geographers, aero-photogrammetric surveys, spatially-defined datasets, widely published photographs, and 50+ years of satellite surveillance of Brasilia. Finally, the fact that both cities has been sites of design projects by major local and global architects sets a standard that future designers will forever have to meet.