Brazil's two futuristic cities exemplify the greening of the vision

Michael Geller is a Vancouver
architect, planner and property developer currently traveling the world. He is
sharing his discoveries with Westcoast Homes readers from time to time.

Growing up in the '50s, I was
fascinated by comic book illustrations of "the city of the future.'' It
usually had wide, landscaped boulevards teeming with streamlined cars and
buses. Gleaming metal-and-glass buildings were connected by bridges and
elevated trains, with spaceship-like buildings in the distance. It wasn't
unlike the east shore of False Creek!

Traveling around the world, I
have seen a number of cities resembling those comic book illustrations: Dubai,
Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore, to name a few. However, one of the most
modern cities is Brasilia, the capital of Brazil.

Brasilia was the brainchild of
Juscelino Kubitschek, who was elected the country's president in 1956 after
promising he would build a new capital before the end of his term. After
examining many locations, he settled on a site near the centre of the country,
about 600 km from the nearest paved road.

Oscar Niemeyer, a prized
student of Le Corbusier, was selected as the architect, along with a planner
named Lucia Costa. Together, they developed a master plan that, from the air,
looks like an airplane heading towards the Atlantic Ocean.

The city is laid out on a very
rigid geometric pattern, with development divided into different sectors along
its two major axes. At the plane's "cockpit" is the legislative and
government precinct; at the "tail," the intercity bus and train
terminal. Public and commercial buildings are located along the fuselage, with
the hotels and embassies grouped separately. The residential areas are located
along the "wings."

There is a variety of housing.
Four-storey, six-storey and highrise buildings are located in "'super
blocks." Neighborhood commercial areas are located between these blocks.
There are separate sectors for leisure facilities and park areas zoned for
walking. Major arterial roads, with grade-separated intersections, link a
central bus station with different sectors that are numbered depending on their
location in relation to the main axes. The sector numbers serve as the basis
for addresses. There are no street names or numbers.

The first phase of the city
was inaugurated on April 21, 1960, just three years, one month and five days
after the master plan was unveiled. It included civic buildings and offices, 94
apartment buildings, 150 hotel rooms and 500 single-family houses, schools and
shops. It was quite an accomplishment, considering that, at first, all labour
and materials had to be flown in, since there was no road to the site.

The city has many beautiful
curvilinear buildings designed by Niemeyer that are considered among the best
modern buildings of their day. However, the architect's large civic plazas are
completely devoid of trees in order to -- as he put it -- "make them feel
special." Niemeyer, now is his 90s, has designed every major public
building over the past 50 years.

Although initially planned for
half a million residents, the city now has a population of over four million.
The residential and commercial sectors have matured; however, the initial
concept that residents would walk to nearby commercial areas has not been
realized, since many Brazilian retailers want to locate near similar merchants.
Consequently, residents still have to drive or take the bus to go shopping.

Brasilia is a vivid example of
how a "city of the future" was envisioned 50 years ago.

But it is not a place for
pedestrians or cyclists. Sadly, we are still planning many Canadian cities the
same

way, with different uses in
their own sectors, separated by car-oriented arterial roads.

Instead of copying Brasilia,
we might look at Curitiba, generally regarded as the "environmental capital
of Brazil" and the greenest South American city with the most parks per
capita.

To the casual observer,
Curitiba appears like many large cities, with its skyline of mediocre apartment
blocks. But when you look more closely, you begin to see some differences.

Many of the streets in the
central area are reserved for pedestrians. The first pedestrian street was
created over a 72-hour period in 1973. The man behind the initiative was Jaime
Lerner, an architect and former mayor and governor of the area. His philosophy
was that to get something done, you had to start quickly.

Elsewhere in the downtown is
Rua 24 Horas, where the shops are required to always be open in order to
increase round-the-clock activity and safety in the area.

The city also has a Free
University of the Environment, which promotes public education on the
environment, inaugurated in 1991 with Jacques Cousteau.

Elsewhere, there is an old
glue factory that was converted into a creativity centre, and a glass-and-steel
opera house built on the site of an old quarry, with trees forming the
"walls" of the auditorium.

The city has a unique and
relatively inexpensive rapid transit system that uses buses rather than trains
or trams. They run along dedicated lanes with raised tubular glass platforms
where the fare is paid. These platforms also allow quick and easy access onto
the buses. Hydraulic lifts are there for those in wheelchairs. Lerner claims
the system works because it was not designed by experts.

The city's extensive waste
collection and recycling program provides five containers, instead of the
typical three. One is for organic waste, and one is for "stico,"
which I would like to think is chewing gum, since I hate seeing it stuck to
sidewalks around a city.

Lerner spoke in Vancouver a
few years ago about some of the city's other sustainability initiatives. He
described a garbage pickup program in which residents of low-income neighborhoods
were paid to collect their own garbage -- with bus tickets. These tickets were
also lottery tickets, which were drawn regularly. In some of the parks, light
fixtures were made from recycled glass by local children.

Brasilia and Curitiba are the two most prosperous
cities in Brazil, and each continues to grow. But they represent very different
visions for the future. As Vancouver's population expands, I hope we will
continue to strive to be more like Curitiba. However, we should also ensure
there is room for some fantastic "space age" architecture, just as
depicted in comic books.