Kyung Kuk Kang

Plan view of the Presidential Palace. Three different private routes connecting work-residence.

Brasilia, a vast-scale planned capital city inaugurated by the president Kubitschek in 1960, is the city built for automobiles following the modernist city planning principles. Wing-Axis highways that run through the entire city from north to south, Superquadra apartment neighborhood units which serve huge portions of citizens who live distant apart, the city Brasilia was designed to have an efficient circulation around the city with segregation of different sectors (e.g. Residential, Finance, Monumental, Hospital, Hotel). 

Plan view of the National Congress

The problem now rises is the traffic jams which occur in rush hours, and also the 80% of workers who cannot afford to live in those Superquadra blocks, hence traveling miles from the distant satellite towns. My design tries to comment on the present inhuman conditions of automobile-based Brasilia and imagines/reconfigures the city into four separate layers. (Residents, Finance, Monumental, Presidential). It references to the urban planners in the 1930s proposing the elevated city by keeping the pedestrians and vehicles separated. Through applying hierarchy amongst the roads in terms of quantity and emptiness, the city reflects back to what it was intended for: “Fifty Years of Progress in Five” – Kubitschek’s Slogan for the election in Brazil.