Brasília, 2003

Brasília was inaugurated in 1960 as the new capital of Brazil. Designed by urban planner Lúcio Costa and architect Oscar Niemeyer, the city was built from scratch in the country’s interior as a symbol of progress, modernity and national ambition. Conceived according to the ideals of modernist urban planning, Brasília remains one of the most ambitious experiments in city-making of the twentieth century.

I photographed Brasília in 2003 using mainly a 4×5 inch large-format camera. The slow and deliberate process of working with this camera echoed the city’s monumental architecture and carefully planned urban structure. The photographs focus on the relationship between architecture, open space and everyday life within a city designed according to a utopian vision.

The images reveal the tension between ideal and reality, theory and practice, planning and outcome. The red earth that surrounds and penetrates the city becomes a recurring presence throughout the work, a constant reminder of the physical landscape upon which this modernist dream was imposed. Buses, bicycles and traces of daily life introduce an element of unpredictability, quietly challenging the image projected by the grand governmental buildings and symbols of progress.

This work marked the beginning of an ongoing photographic interest in cities conceived according to ambitious social and architectural visions, a line of research that would later lead to projects in Chandigarh, India, and Astana, Kazakhstan.