No, no, I´m not talking about haunted houses. I´m referring to what author Alain de Botton says in his book The architecture of happiness. According to him, there is a language buildings and objects speak when we look at them, and our fondness or distaste of them comes from the relationship we establish between those buildings and human beings whom we like or do not like. In other words, they remind us of people we´ve encountered in our life.
That happened to me when I visited Brasília, the capital of Brazil, for the first time. I was very excited I was going to see the buildings I knew housed the big decisions in this country.The Congress, the Senate, the Alvorada palace. I was going to actually be there and experience the work of architect Oscar Niemeyer, the man who designed that city, built in the 1960´s, during the government of President Juscelino Kubitschek.I was finally going to have a glimpse of what these two men thought Brazil should look and be like.
I was very disappointed when I got there. As I tried to connect with the buildings, they didn´t even try to connect with me. They were mute. Concrete giants enclosed within themselves.
That´s when I began realizing what de Botton says. Those buildings, and Brasília as a whole, for the landscape is uniform, reminded me of what I find most obnoxious in certain people, especially when they are powerful: selfishness, lack of empathy and that attitute of owning the world. In a paradox, I felt suffocated in a place where empty spaces are abundant. There are no sidewalks, there are almost no trees ( in a country full of trees), the air is dry to the point of gasping. The only positive aspect of Brasília, for me, is the people: kind, friendly, warm. And that takes me to another realization about my country.
For many decades now, Brazil has been trying to be modern, developed, respected. And in some ways we´re reaching that. But the concept of modern in the minds of our past leaders (and some present ones, too) was linked to the idea of rupturing with the past at any cost. For the country of the future, anything that resembled our colonial past had to go.Wood, brick, clay, intricate shapes, bright colors either resembled Europe, or the jungle, or the slave quarters. In the anxiety of finding a face in the mirror that could match the idea of new, they chose concrete. Cold, mute concrete. Had they looked more closely, they´d have seen that´s not the Brazilian face. The Brazilian face is every face. And that´s where novelty is: in diversity. Instead of wasting time and money trying to build huge concrete structures to show up to the world, they should have tried to build a fair society first.
I´m referring to what author Alain de Botton says in his book The architecture of happiness. According to him, there is a language buildings and objects speak when we look at them, and our fondness or distaste of them comes from the relationship we establish between those buildings and human beings whom we like or do not like. In other words, they remind us of people we´ve encountered in our life.
July 30, 2009 | In Identity
Discuss
sean walsh on July 31, 2009, 2:08 PM
If your ever in Plymouth England take a look at facelift the city has had.It was one of Englands biggest navel bases dureing WW2 and the city was bombed to rubble and up popped concrete monstrocities.Well 6 years ago they knocked down great swaves of these gloomy building and have put up some fine structures.The best in my view is the new building behind a burnt out church within a roundabout.In my view now this city has been transformed from doom and gloom to a bussling city of architechual master pieces.
Luciana Lhullier on July 31, 2009, 5:26 PM
Sean, after I read your comment I was so curious I had to check some images of Plymouth on the Internet. I have been to London and some places in Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, and remember seeing the scars of WW2 in some buildings, in London, mostly. The English know a lot about rebirth, don´t they? I think it´s an admirable trait.
Unfortunately, I don´t think this facelift will ever happen to Brasília. Some new buildings are being built though, and glass seems to be the new trend. We´ll see.
Thank you for your comment and for letting me know about Plymouth. It made me want to visit it next time I´m in the UK.
tim hall on August 8, 2009, 11:41 AM
Luciana, We have similar urban development problems here in the U.S. Like your government, our urban planning in a major city can be altered by whoever is in power at the moment. Too many unjustified structures go up because an individualist group has a selfish need. We have a lot of ornate historical limestone structures in our capital city of Indianapolis. Some of the finest limestone was dug out of pits in southern Indiana to produce a beautiful city over 100 years ago. The stone shows off it’s beauty in the way the sun light hits it. It has very little quality in the shade of a big ugly rectangle.
I am not oppossed to new innovative architecture. However, when it invades on historic beauty, we have a problem.
The other urban development problem that is not unique to our country is the use of modernization to remove an estabished coulture of poor persons. The inhabinants of a poor group of Lithuanians or Romanians in a historic sector of a city is beauty for me. The idea that these people are still able to etch out a living in the middle of an English/Dutch capitalist monstrosity is beauty in itself. When you remove this beauty, all you have left is selfesh individualist pretending to have wonderful lives slapping down more concrete in order to have a little more individual elbow room to get to the show. It is sad that they are missing life entirely.
Luciana Lhullier on August 26, 2009, 3:20 PM
Hi Tim, I like your idea. In other words, the ideal would be that the innovative could get along with the ancient. Just like with people. The co-existence and harmony, despite the differences, in the buildings would somehow reflect what went on with people.
Thanks for commenting!
tim hall on September 5, 2009, 11:03 AM
Yes, just as well, our social attitudes towards each other are reflected in how we treat our visual experiance. It works both ways, I think?
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