Test your Design IQ
MANILA, Philippines - Who is the Brazilian architect and urban planner best known for the plan for the new capital of Brasilia?
He was born in Toulon, France on Feb. 27, 1902 and educated at the Royal Grammer School in England. In 1924, he graduated as an architect from the School of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro.
After some early works in the eclectic manner, he adopted Modernism in 1929. The following year, he established a partnership with Russian-born Brazilian architect Gregori Warchvchik, and became manager of the School of Fine Arts.
Even though he found students eager to be taught in the “new style,” his ruthless administrations caused the faculty and student body to oppose him, causing him to resign after a year. He then joined the newly created SPHAN (Service of National Historic and Artistic Heritage) in 1937, reaching the top post of director, and remaining there until retirement.
He became a figure associated with reconciling Brazilian forms and construction techniques with international modernism, particularly the work of Le Corbusier. His works include the Brazilian pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, which he designed with Oscar Niemeyer. The Pareque Guinle residential complex in Rio, and the Hotel Do Park Sao Clemente in Nova Friburgo, both in 1948. He is best known for his urban plan for the new capital of Brasilia, located in Brazil’s hinterland, an assignment he gained by winning a public competition in 1957. His pilot plan for Brasilia is in the shape of an irregular cross, suggesting an airplane or dragonfly.
His own Parque Guinle project was the model for Brasilia’s many residential-tower-in-a park superblocks, and he specified even the color of the bus driver’s uniforms: dark grey, with a mandatory cap.
Although named as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, the city is notorious for its windswept emptiness and what is perceived to be an anti-pedestrian layout. Some streets are badly lit because the height and spacing of light standards were not changed with the advent of mercury vapor bulbs, and the World Heritage Site designation has prevented remediation.
Nevertheless, the city reflects his “utopian” vision. It has produced a city of considerable quality of life, in which the citizens live in wooded areas with sporting and leisure structures called superquantdras, flanked by small commercial areas, bookstores, and cafes. The city is famous for its gastronomy and the relative efficiency of transit.
He died in Rio de Janeiro in 1998.
Last week’s question: Who is the Japanese-born Australian chef known as one of the successful exponents of Franco-Japanese cuisine with his Sydney-based restaurants Kinsela’s and Tetsuyas?
Answer: Tetsuya Wakuda
Winner: Carolyn Marie Santos of Tindalo St., Parañaque
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