Brasilia was the theater on January 8 of an attempt at insurrection by far -right rioters. In an interview with the “world”, the historian Laurent Vidal analyzes the deeply democratic symbolism which presided over the construction of this place, targeted by the attackers.
Interview by Bruno Meyerfeld (Rio de Janeiro, correspondent)
On January 8, several thousand far-right rioters devastated the main Brazilian institutions, located on Place des Trois-Pouvoirs, in Brasilia.
Specialist in the history of Brazil, Laurent Vidal is a teacher-researcher at La Rochelle University and scientific manager of the ethnopole “Ocean humanities”. He devoted several books to the construction of this futuristic capital, including the tears of Rio (Flammarion, 2009). His next work, cities and history in Brazil, must appear in March at the University Press of Rennes.
For those who do not know it, what is the place of the three-cans?
As its name suggests, it is the place that welcomes the headquarters of the three main constitutional powers of Brazil: the legislative, with the congress, the executive, with the presidential palace of the planalto, and the judiciary, with The Federal Supreme Court. It is located at the end of the monumental axis: an 8 -kilometer avenue, along which are placed most official government buildings.
This place was designed in a very specific context. We are in 1956, and Juscelino Kubitschek (1902-1976) has just been invested president, despite serious threats from army putsch. The project to build a new capital, which it bears, is supposed to bring together a torn company. At the time, the Brazilian urban planner Lucio Costa, traveling to the United States, met the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. “Democracy has not yet built,” said the latter, suggesting that authoritarian monarchies and regimes have all built capitals, unlike modern democracies. This reflection stirs Lucio Costa and convinces him to compete to draw the pilot plan of Brasilia.
How does this manifest on the Place des Trois-Pouvoirs?
It is a question of concretely representing democracy, that is to say first of all the balance of powers, hence the use of the equilateral triangle for the arrangement of the three buildings. In the place, rectangular in shape, these resonate. They look at each other and in a way are monitored, control themselves … But, for Lucio Costa, it was also a question of promoting democracy of parliamentary form. The congress is the largest and most massive of the three buildings. The land has been raised so that the legislature visually dominates the judiciary and the executive, placed below.
Other characteristics may be highlighted. First, the monumental aspect of buildings to translate the idea of a strong and powerful democracy. Then, the preponderant use of glass facades, which were broken on January 8. In democracy, they obviously symbolize transparency. Finally, there is the symbolism of water, present in many basins around buildings, allowing to inscribe political life in a form of timelessness.
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