Brasília: Between Silence and Utopia
Brasília might be the most utopian city I’ve ever visited.
Planned with precision and built from scratch, it sparked something unusual in me — a quiet optimism, a sudden sense of connection with Brazil. Not just as a place, but as a project.
I went there on assignment to create a cover story for Aé (Aésthetist), an international magazine focused on art, design, and aesthetics. The theme of that issue was Utopia, and Brasília — with its vast open spaces, futuristic shapes, and political symbolism — felt like the perfect match.
The photograph that became the cover, now featured at the top of this post, was taken in front of the National Museum. What struck me then — and still resonates now — was the contrast between the stark white architecture and the vivid colors that punctuate the city: ceramic panels, stained glass, textured murals. That tension between structure and emotion became the essence of the series.
The reality of Brasília today is far from its original plan. And yet, I felt its artistic pulse everywhere — in the curves of Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa, the gardens of Burle Marx, the tiles of Athos Bulcão. But beyond the icons, I found other layers: Afro-Brazilian, Indigenous, anonymous — reminders that this city was built by many hands from many places.
A poet I met there, Joaquim Bezerra da Nóbrega — known as the “Lampião of Ceilândia” — told me:
“I was born in Paraíba, came to build Brasília, but one day I got tired of working in construction and fell in love with words.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Brasília might seem like a city without a single identity. But maybe it’s exactly the opposite — a place where multiple Brazilian identities converge and coexist. A city of silence, structure, and surprise. And for a photographer, the silence is often where everything begins.
