I have just landed from Brazil. Here are the notes and my musings from what I have seen, learned and was most impressed with.
Too often when we speak of ideal cities, the first things that come to mind are beautiful architecture, efficient transportation and plenty of housing. Yet, Brasilia (the capital of Brazil) that has been designed with all three above qualities in mind, might be the harsh evidence that unfortunately, these ingredients might not be enough to create an urban utopia. The way I felt about Brasilia is the way I feel about Stanley Kubrick’s movies - they are beautifully designed, cutting-edge, futuristic, yet they feel old, outdated and confusing.
The history of Brasilia is absolutely fascinating. In 1883, the Italian saint Dom Bosco dreamed of a utopian city of the future.This dream influenced the construction of Brasília, the capital of Brazil, in the 1950s and 60s, and can be seen in its oneiric, ethereal buildings. The plan of the central city has been likened to a bird, a bow and arrow, or an airplane. The city is filled with beautiful architecture, considerate city planning and intricate landscape design. Yet, it feels very strange, at times artificial and alien.
“ Lúcio Costa won a contest and was the main urban planner. Oscar Niemeyer, a close friend of Lúcio’s, was the chief architect of most public buildings and Roberto Burle Marx was the landscape designer. Brasília was built in 41 months, from 1956 to April 21, 1960, when it was officially inaugurated.”
The main curiosity of Brasilia is the visionary and extraordinary architecture by Oscar Niemeyer:
* Museo National - this building wants you - it’s so futuristic and imaginative. The entrance is a large ramp. And as you ascend it, the anxious anticipation bubbles up inside you.
* Congress National - separated by towers, the two dishes - one is looking inside, one is looking outside. The towers suppose to equalize the sides.
* Palacio de Justica - suppose to signify perpetual motion and has waterfalls mounted on the externals of the building.
* The Itamaraty Palace - while in my opinion, it looks pretty modest on pictures, it looks very extravagant in real life. The external shell gently hides the internal one.
* Teatro Claudio Santoro - what a sad fate dawned on this theater. It supposed to be incredible, yet it looks completely abandoned.
* The Library - the temple of knowledge is very clean and pristine.
A special space should be dedicated to modernists churches. While I have never been especially interested in the architecture of religious institutions, these places are ostentatious:
* Catedral of Brasília - you are flooded with light. If you think that you have seen stainless windows - trust me you have not, until you saw this cathedral. While usually sculptures are grounded - here there are 3 floating from the ceiling. It’s humid and extravagant at the same time. I can’t express how I feel about this church -
* Santuário Dom Bosco - while Cathedral of Brasilia field and flooded with light, Santuario Dom Bosco played with colors and showed . There are 12 shades of blue that sparkle and change. You want to approach them and touch. And I am not even going to gush about the chandelier: This chandelier is made up of 7,400 small pieces of Murano glass, weighs 3,000 kilograms, and is 3.5 meters high.
* Templo da Boa Vontade - feel less than a hunch, but headquarters of the cult. Correction, beautiful headquarters of the cult. This is a true mix of religion - they even have an Egyptian room
* The Memorial - even memorials are unusual here - the memorial to the present JK feels more of a sculpture garden of aliens than a traditional memorial to the present.
Couple of days later, I went to Museum of Arte Moderne in Rio de Janeiro and I saw there historical photos of the process of building Brasilia. We frequently see the present and it hard for us to imagine how it came together. Yet these pictures so freshly put in perspective the swift creation of the city (build in 4 years!) . Here is the city retrospective: historical pictures of Brasilia in 1959 and the ones I took in 2020:
(photos are by Artur Costa in 1956 currently hanging in MAM museum )
It is slightly ironic that another capital city was inspired by Brasilia: Albany (which is the official capital of New York State). Architecture of Albany has been called “The Poor Man’s Brasilia”, so if Brasilia is too far, you can stay in the north hemisphere for a more modest version of modernist governmental buildings.
(The professional picture of Albany, along with a couple of snaps I took in November 2018)
When I walk into the museum and pass by the painting that picks my interest, my first reaction is to read a side plank to figure out who is it by: “Do I know the artist?”, “Have I seen the pieces by him before?”, “Is it a prominent work that deserves attention?”. I might be projecting, but it seems that museums have trained us to use the references before we form a judgment about the piece. That’s why I was especially impressed by Sao Paolo Museum of Art (MASP) and the set-up of the exhibits. Instead of the traditional walls around the perimeter of the room, the paintings were placed on the glass walls in parallel rows throughout the room. No planks on the side- if the visitor wants to know who the painting is by, he or she needs to walk around the painting. Hence the viewer, for the most part, is exposed purely to paintings without any information, giving sufficient time to evaluate the painting aesthetically.
I finally got to visit Inhotim - a museum inside the jungle. I felt like Alexander Von Humboldt and Larry Gagosian at the same time. To explore the works one needs to hike for 500 art works sprinkled amid 500,000 acres of tropical forests.
It is hard to pick favorites, but let me list a few spectacular works that absolutely took my breath away:
* Matthew Barney “De lama lamina”, 2009 - geodesic domes in the middle of tropical forest house inside a gigantic tree cutting machine contrasting the idyllic , capturing our current tensions between the needs of industrialized economies and need to preserve the environment.
* Doug Aitken “Sonic Pavilion”, 2009 - a glass pavilion on top of a 200-meter deep well that captures and amplifies what “Earth sounds like”.
* Laura Vinci “Maquina do mundo”, 2005 - mechanical hourglass. This sculpture uses conveyor belt to transfer marble powder from one pile to another. When all pieces are transferred, the machine turns around around and repeats the process. I can’t put my finger on it, but there is something extremely meditative about this piece.
* Cristina Iglesias “Vegetation Room Inhotim” 2010-2012- a mirrored cubic structure in the middle of the jungle with a labyrinth made from plastic plants inside disorients your perceptions. The structure makes the experience surreal and distorts the feeling of space and time.
* Jorge Macchi “Piscina”, 2009- everyday objects (dress-book) in altered situations (swimming pool) is a beutiful surrealistic encounter between artist’s fantastic imagine and viewer’s and viewer’s physical experience.
* Janet Cardiff “Forty Part Motet”, 2001 - a sound sculpture. A choral work by Thomas Tallis deals with humility and transcendence. I will leave it at that. It is a favorite piece for a lot of people in the whole Inhotim, a lot of them report that they have cried. Let me say that it’s surprisingly moving and emotional for a sound sculpture. * Lygia Pape “Tteia 1C”, 2002 - geometric sculptures made out of wire that makes you question your sight. A very gentle artwork that shows that grandees and elegance can be achieved with a metabolized thread.
In the north of Rio, in the port area, stands an eye-catching and striking white building designed by notorious Santiago Calatrava. The name of the museum is “Museum of Tomorrow”. The main purpose of the museum is the need for change if mankind is to avoid climate disaster, environmental degradation and social collapse. The construction of the building itself is also based on the premise of the museum: the building 9% solar-powered, has reduced energy consumption footprint and the cooling system taps deep water from nearby Guanabara Bay.
While it’s easy to discard the museum as a ‘tourist-trap’, ‘instagram-trophy’, or contemporary take on children’s science museum, I was impressed. For me the museum visit visit has coincided with finishing the book Sapiens by Yuval Harari. In the book the author concentrates on the topics environmental degradation and technological progress from high-level perspective of the history of humanity. Museum of Tomorrow, for me was a physical manifestation of the book, focusing on ideas rather than artifacts, leading the visitors from the origins of humans to our possible futures.
There are no robots, flying cars and space travel, but the unique ideas discussed are more valuable than any technological marvels, since it helps reframe our “attitude towards the future”, making it less about the artifacts we produce, but the purpose and the means of our activity.
“When people think of the ‘Future’, it usually seems very far away. That’s why we called the museum ‘Tomorrow’. It’s closer. It depends on what we do today”
Bossa Nova began on the tropical beaches of Rio de Janeiro in the late 1950s, when a small group of mainly middle-class students, artists and musicians came together to create a new sound. I took a class with local composer and here is what I have learned.
Bosa Nova is:
* intimate: it was performed in the apartments in Ipanema, so it’s meant to be quiet and gentle in order not to disturb the neighbors. It’s all
* it’s genuine: sounds are frequently about love, but they are not melodramatic: lyrics do not have false promises (like “I would get a star for you”) or self-righteous victimization (“you broke my heart”)
* it’s elegant: invited and enjoyed by upper classes, the music and lyrics in a way are chic, and while the music seems spontaneous, it still has a polish of expressing correctly the feelings and doing it in style.
** Mural of João Gilberto in Sao Paolo by graffiti artist Speto (Feb 2020)
Here is the list of new favorite tunes:
* Balanço Zona Sul
* Antonio Carlos Jobim - Brazil
* Nara Leao - Diz que fui por aí
Names to know:
* Astrud Gilberto - brilliant singer, who slightly resembles Andrea Hepburn. Her fame skyrocketed when she sang ‘The Girl From Ipanema’
* Antônio Carlos Jobim (Tom Jobim) - besides being credited with creating Bosa Nova, also notable for score for the film Orfeu Negro
* Vinícius de Moraes - poet, lyricist and playwright. Fun fact he also served as a diplomat.
* João Gilberto was singer, songwriter, and guitarist, Around the world he was often called "father of bossa nova"
* Nara Leão - was a muse of Bosa Nova composers as well as a wonderful singer.
Museums come in different shapes and sizes: some are hosted in beautiful mansions with years of history, some live in new masterpieces designed by prominent architects and some are located in obscure locations. Museu Aberto de Arte Urbana (Open Museum of Urban Art of São Paulo - SP-MAAU) is a space under the subway station. The pieces are displayed on columns below the blue metro line. No planks, but the pieces frequently contain instagram accounts of the artists. Here are some of my favorite graffiti/murals pieces from around Sao Paolo:
* Mural to commemorate people who died in the dam tragedy of the Brumandinho, was painted with mud. * Presto - the artist who has impressed me with the diversity of characters in his works - truly the ability to dream up characters
* [TarikKlein] made me laugh with his transfusion of dogs and famous works of art: Frida Huahua, van Dogh and the Beagles)
Disclaimer: pardon typos - most of these notes were written on a 10 hour flight by a very very tired me.