Brasilia

Brasilia is not only a planned city. It is a planned capital.
Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, was inaugurated on April 22nd 1960, in the central area of the country. Just five years before, the area resembled a desert, with no people, scarce water, few animals and plants.
President Juscelino Kubitschek, who became President in 1956, invited the best Brazilian architects to present projects for the new capital. Oscar Niemeyer, today one of the most famous world's architects, combined straight and rounded shapes to create innovative architectural masterpieces. Lucio Costa, reknowned Brazilian urbanist, devised a lay-out combining beautiness, simplicity and functionality.

The basic structure of Brasilia was completed in just four years, from 1956 to 1960, under the leadership of President Juscelino Kubitschek, with the slogan "fifty years of progress in five", and the city is in a sense a memorial to him. The cathedral as six columns reprsenting two hands reaching up to almighty heaven.

The city plan is designed in the shape of a giant bird or airplane, with various separated zones assigned for specific functions such as housing, commerce, hospitals and banking. Running down the center of the "airplane's" fuselage is the thoroughfare called the Eixo Monumental ("Monumental Axis") and at one end lay the government buildings. The arched "wings" are residential zones, with several rows of medium-rise apartment blocks with small commercial districts. The intersection is the commercial and cultural hub, with stores, hotels, and the cathedral. A huge artificial lake serves the city as both a leisure area and to diminish the effects of low humidity in drier months (see Climate below).

After 48 years from its creation (1960), Brasilia is still developing a culture of its own. The city has often been criticized as a failed utopia where rationalized modernist planning has buried the human element. Yet Brazilians are quite proud of their capital, embodying a vision of a future when Brazil is no longer considered merely a "developing" country.

The original planned area (called Plano Piloto) is home to about 400,000 inhabitants, most of the city's upper classes. The so-called satellite cities (15 to 40 kilometres away concentrate the remaining of the 2.2 million inhabitants of this great city of Brasília (Distrito Federal).

Climate

Temperatures seldom hit extremes. 17°C to 28°C (63 to 82°F) are the average lows and highs, but it can get as low as 1°C (34°F) in winter and get as hot as 34°C (92°F) in September/October. In dry season (August-September) the city's landscape, normally very green, becomes desert-like and everyone must drink lots of water to prevent the unpleasant effects of dehydration. On the other hand, during those months the city is blessed with a gorgeous sunset in spectacular shades of orange, pink and red. The best months to go are probably May and June - still green, but no longer so hot, with fewer chances of rainfall.