LE CORBUSIER

IN BRAZIL
Antonio Amado Lorenzo.
PhD. architect at the
Universidade da Coruña –
Spain

16
 LE
LE CORBUSIER
CORBUSIER
IN
IN BRAZIL
BRAZIL

There are, for a great traveller as

myself, privileged surfaces over
the map of the world, among the
mountains, the planes and flat
lands where the great rivers flow
towards the sea. Brazil is one of
those generous places that we
take great pleasure call it friend 1
(Le
(Le Corbusier,
Corbusier, 1962)
1962)1

Fig.
Fig. 22 Le
Le Corbusier
Corbusier beside
beside aa Rio
Rio

L
de
de Janeiro
Janeiro beach.
beach. (FLC)
(FLC)
e Corbusier relationship with Brazil lasted
for more than thirty years. In spite of the
great expectations for his work in this First
FIRST trip, 1929
TRIP, 1929
American country, where he hoped to materialize
his proposals which old Europe would not let Le Corbusier’s
Le Corbusier’s inicial
inicial voyage
voyage to to Brazil,
Brazil, in
in the
the austral
austral
him, this long lasting relation with Brazil was winter of
winter of 1929,
1929, meant
meant aa lot
lot to
to him.
him. To
To start
start with,
with, aa trip
trip
not at all successful. On the contrary, frustrating on aa liner,
on liner, which
which was
was supposed
supposed to to be
be the
the germ
germ ofof aa
number of
number of buildings
buildings such
such asas the
the Unite
Unite de
de Habitation
Habitation
expectations followed, and future projects were
in Marsella. He had been invited to give ten
in Marsella. He had been invited to give ten lectures lectures
interrupted likewise complaints and demands by
in Buenos
in Buenos Aires,
Aires, though
though he he also
also gave
gave lectures
lectures
the architect. Le Corbusier relationship with his
in Montevideo,
in Montevideo, SaoSao Paulo
Paulo and
and Rio
Rio de
de Janeiro.
Janeiro. Le Le
Brazilian colleagues who, from the beginning,
Corbusier was
Corbusier was then
then 42,
42, and
and was
was already
already aa worldwide
worldwide
considered him a mesiah in the new architecture, known lecturer, not so as an architect. His lectures
known lecturer, not so as an architect. His lectures
was difficult and great adhesions and different in South
South America,
America, though,
though, had
had aa great
great impact
impact among
among
in
opinions appeared. (Fig. 1) young architects
architects interested
interested in in the
the new
new architectonical
architectonical
young
avant-garde.
avant-garde.
For years, Le Corbusier devoted most of his
energies to propose ambitious urban projects. He In those
In those years,
years, itit was
was being
being discussed
discussed withinwithin
intended to change the concept of city and what In this way, a number of political circles,
political circles, aa growing
growing interest
interest in in the
the possibility
possibility
was even a major utopia to transform the world of building
of building aa totally
totally new
new and
and modern
modern capital
capital city
city to
to
cities such as Genoa, substitute Rio de Janeiro. Having been informed by
by means of architecture and the making of a city. substitute Rio de Janeiro. Having been informed by
Work spaces would be centralized in 200 m high
Argel, Rio de Janeiro,could some friend
some friend ofof these
these incipient
incipient ideas,
ideas, Le Le Corbusier
Corbusier
Fig.
Fig. 11 Le
de
Le Corbusier
de Carvalho
Corbusier with
Carvalho in
in front
with Monteiro
front of
Monteiro
of the
the Pao
Pao de
de skyscrapers, with huge means of transport both be spared of the menace foresaw an
foresaw an opportunity
opportunity to to develop
develop his his ideas
ideas on
on
Azúcar,
Azúcar, 1929.
1929. (FLC)
(FLC) of enormous highways modern cities.
modern cities. HeHe then
then contacted
contacted PauloPaulo Prado,
Prado, aa
vertical and horizontal to be able to commute a
rich man from Sao Paulo who was
rich man from Sao Paulo who was also well known also well known
great number of people to the different parts of being built in level curves for backing
backing thethe rationalist
rationalist architects,
architects, and and he
he offered
offered
the city. Such proposals as the ones elaborated in for
(Fiat) on the basis of a himself as
himself as the
the designer
designer of of the
the imagined
imagined new new city:
city:
Rio de Janeiro, with less rigid geometry, but also
with broad motorways over the covers of blocks of
standard structure which “I would
“I would bebe interested
interested in in aa visit
visit to
to Rio
Rio de
de Janeiro
Janeiro andand
Sao Paulo if financial conditions were interesting
Sao Paulo if financial conditions were interesting (...) (...)
buildings, were similar to those already designed would give room enough to
Indeed, the
Indeed, the dream
dream of of Planaltina,
Planaltina, is is something
something II cannot
cannot
for other cities. a great number of people.22 help thinking
help thinking about.”
about.”3 3

1 “Some words for my Brazilian friends” (29/12/1962). VV. AA. Le Corbusier 2 Reviews of Le Corbusier in 1934, after his visit to the Fiat factory in Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994, p. 25. 3 Planaltina, the original name for the new capital would eventually be
e o Brasil, p. 292. Lingotto, Milán. Boesiger, Willy y Storonov, Oscar. Le Corbusier, Complete Works. changed to Brasilia.

18
8 199
 LE CORBUSIER
IN BRAZIL
Le Corbusier visited Rio eventually, and was totally
impressed by the outstanding beauty of the city
and its natural surroundings. He did not only walk
downtown but, with by some architects followers
of his new theories, visited the slums and outskirts
of the city, the so called “favelas”, getting in touch
with the “carioca” popular architecture. He was
deeply touched by the seaside and nearby beaches
Copacabana, Ipanema or Leblon (Fig. 2) Rio was
different to the sad European cities where he lived or
had lived before, those that had been devastated by
the two European wars in the previous years. He had
come to a privileged city, with two confronting points:
the natural hills of Corcovado (713 m high) and the
Pao de Azucar (396). Rio de Janeiro was completely
different to Buenos Aires which was no hilly at
all, and also to Paris, with Montmartre, a natural
elevation of only 130 m 4 (Fig. 3)
Though he did not think of interfering with Agache
at first, the urban designer who was working on
an architectural plan for Rio, Le Corbusier, after a
shocking flight over the city alongside with the city
mayor, presented a new proposal for Rio, as well as
for the other important cities already visited. In fact,
in his lectures in Buenos Aires he used to talk about
4 The mound Montmartre does not have enough altitude to perceive its
true magnitude Paris, considering the large diameter of the city. In this sense,
20
his experiences overflying the jungle, watching the
incredible meanders of the rivers.5 In this proposal,
no building was to exceed the motorways, situated
at a high of one hundred meters, connecting the
different parts of the city, avoiding the mountains and
making the road traffic easier. That flight influenced
in his ideas of how a city should be planned. That is
why his proposal for Rio is more a vision from above
rather than a conventional urban drawing. (Fig. 4).
The new blocks were built at 40 contour line over the
existing buildings, going up even 60 meters more
until reaching contour line 100. It was a radical plan,
as the Plan Voisin for Paris had been in 1925.
On this first voyage, he also met the American
dancer Josephine Baker “the most erotic woman I
had ever met” in his own words. Josephine Baker’s
sensuality and the sinuosity of the beaches of Rio
were a turning point in the rationalist architect’s
mentality. Le Corbusier’s city designs were different
after his travelling to Rio, less radical than they
used to be. In fact, the proposals for Rio de Janeiro,
present sinuous blocks of buildings far from the
previous Euclidean ones. (Fig. 5)
Fig. 4 A Le Corbusier´s proposal for Río
de Janeiro, 1929. (FLC)
Between this voyage to Brazil in 1929 and the next
in 1936, exactly in the Autum of 1935, the architect
travelled for the first time to the United States, after
having been invited by the MOMA to lead an exhibition
going round the States for more than two years. Le
Corbusier gave several lectures in the universities
of Yale, Princeton, Harvard etc, following visits to
and since 1887. In this sense, and since 1887, the Eiffel Tower with its 300 m. balloons flights, inaccessible to the vast majority of Parisians, could make a 5 Benton, Tim. Le Corbusier. Secret Photographer. Zurich: Lars Müller, 2013.
height, assumed a new perception of the city. When it opened, only hot air similar view of city. P311.
21
 LE CORBUSIER
IN BRAZIL

Philadelphia, Kansas, Chicago, Detroit and a city with

spectacular skyscrapers, New York.
“When I saw the Empire State Building for the first
time, I wanted to lie there, on the pavement, and stay
there looking upwards forever.”
Visiting New York, he found many of the
architectonical elements he had imagined for his
futurist cities: tall buildings, speedy lifts, means
of transport, systems to detect fires etc. His
expectations were a complete deception when he
could not obtain the projects he longed for, so he had
to go back to Paris without both projects and money.
Something troubling, since at that time his economy
was going through a very difficult situation.

Second trip, 1936

In 1936, a few months later, Le Corbusier went

Fig. 6 Frank Lloyd Wright with
Lucio Costa and Warchavchik
in Brazil, in 1931. (FLC)
back to Paris, invited by the Education Board to
give a series of lectures, appointed by his friend
Alberto Monteiro de Carvalho. But many things
had changed in the country. Among some others,
the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright had
visited the town in 1931, taking part in a jury on
architecture. (Fig 6) He was also going through a
professional isolation, though some years later he
would emerge designing buildings such Fallingwater
or the Offices Johnson. He stayed in Brazil for three
weeks, contributing to the consolidation of modern
architecture. In the thirties, the young Brazilian
architects were looking for references in the new Fig. 7 A German zeppelin flying over
Río de Janeiro in the thirties.
buildings of the international “masters”. It was then
when Lucio Costa was internationally recognized
and Le Corbusier -even more than Wright- with less
accessible and perhaps more complex works. Rio de
Janeiro had been considered as the new “Corbusian
territory”.6
wrote in a letter, he had not been building anything This second travel to Brazil had been different. He
In this second travel, Le Corbusier retook his in the last four years.7 His different trips to South did not board a ship as he had done in his previous
Brazilian contacts, though there were no professional America and the one to USA, were also a way to get voyages to America, but this time he boarded the
projects, only one advice for the Education Ministry real architectural projects. His extreme need for German LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin, with a total length of
of Rio, although the final solution of the building was money, implied uncomfortable negotiations because 250 m. Doubtless, this travel was a very special one
defined when I was back in Europe. He was going of the way he should be paid, and his insistency on for Le Corbusier. By those years, conventional flights
through economic difficulties. In fact, in 1938 as he his being employed as an adviser. 8 were not popular yet. They were only popular among

6 Nedelykov Nina y Moreira, Pedro. Ambiente n. 88, La Plata, Argentina, 2001. 8 During the previous year, 1935, he had complained bitterly that his
7 VV. AA. Le Corbusier e o Brasil, p. 188. lectures at American universities were very poorly paid much less than he had
given in South America in 1929.

22 23
 LE CORBUSIER
IN BRAZIL
military officers and the upper classes. We have to
bear in mind that in 1927, only nine years earlier,
Charles Lindberg had crossed the Atlantic for the
first time. 9
Though he would have chosen sailing, he boarded
the Zeppelin on July 9th 1936 in Frankfurt, and four
days later landed in Rio, after landing for a short
time in Recife. As a means of transport, the Zeppelin
was not a fast one so he was able to see not only the
tranquility of the Atlantic Ocean but overfly France,
Spain and a considerable part of the Brazilian
coast.10 The aircraft would permit a spectacular view
of the city, as in many of the aerial perspectives in
his proposals. Although he had already traveled by
plane in 1929,11 one can imagine the Graf Zeppelin
practically suspended on the Rio bay and the
overwhelming views from above. (fig7)
The camera
In 1936 Le Corbusier bought a small camera,
Siemens B 16 mm which let him not only take
pictures but also shoot films. He would photographed
anything he was interested in, trees, bricks,
machines, rocks etc. He took that camera on his
trip to Brazil. The pictures he took let us know what
9 The aerial crossing of the Atlantic still take to normalize for commercial
flights. In fact even in the following years, most pilots who tried sank into the
ocean waters.
24
was of interest for him. We have a photograph of the
Zeppelin before taking off with the nazi swastika on
its flaps. Pictures of the aircraft and its structure,
industrial elements, equipments and specific
machinery were also dear to him.
After arriving in Brazil, in another austral winter,
he took pictures and films of Rio and the Corcovado
together with the new icon of the city the art deco
statue of Cristo Redentor (finished only 5 years
before). He seemed to be rather interested in the
exotic vegetation of the country, wind beaten palm
trees, humble villages and fishermen mending their
boats, ordinary people he met visiting the “favelas”,
a child riding a pig, beautiful native girls, all these
photographs and drawings are similar to others
taken in the North of Africa some years before.
(Fig. 8)
His voyage home on board of the Conte
Biancamano was much more conventional. It took
thirteen days to cross the Atlantic Ocean which let
him observe the general organization on the boat and
take pictures (744) of the naval architecture as he had Fig. 9 Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer,
in the Brazilia airport, in 1962. (FLC)
done in 1929. He would not photograph the first class
passengers but those on the decks below in their
daily routine, as he had done in the “favelas” in Rio.
In spite of the thousands o pictures taken in 1936, his
cinematographic interest lasted but a short time, and As a kind of compensation, he was given, then, the
he turn gradually to drawings. A third architectural project of the new French Embassy in Brasilia but for
proposal for Rio de Janeiro completed in 1936, is different reasons, the project was not carried out. Le
even more radical contemplating new tall buildings in Corbusier made his last trip to Brazil since the 22th
“Y” plant that completely substitute the former city. to the 29th of December 1962, visiting the completed
Nevertheless, in spite of all his efforts, this project works of the new Brazilian capital, though his main
never came true. interest was to check the place where the Embassy
should be built. He was about to built another two
The last voyage - 1962 cultural buildings in Brasilia but in the end he could
not perform those projects. This last visit to Brazil,
From the twenties onwards, Le Corbusier had when he was 75 years of age, put an end to a long
wanted to take part in the design of the project for connection with this country that had lasted for
Brasilia and was admitted firstly as an adviser to be more than thirty years. His last voyage in 1962 was
rejected later, though Brasilia was considered the a complete success. Nevertheless he refused any
most practical application of his designs as an urban kind of interview or declaration while he stayed in the
designer.12 As he said, “Brasilia is a “ville radieuse country. Anyway new commission was yet to come, A
vert”.13 Casa do Brazil in the campus of Paris.
10 The distance from Frankfurt to Rio de Janeiro is 9,586 km. Tours in 4 days, 11 Benton, Tim. Le Corbusier. Secret Photographer. Zurich: Lars Müller, 2013. 12 VV. AA. Le Corbusier e o Brasil, p. 255.
at an average speed of only 130 km per hour and low altitude. The fare was P239. 13 VV. AA. Le Corbusier e o Brasil, p. 258.
about 1,500 and 2,200 marks, about the price of a utilitarian car.
25
 LE CORBUSIER
IN BRAZIL
Lucio costa and oscar niemeyer
When we talk of Le Corbusier and Brazil, we cannot
forget to mention Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer,
both of them responsible for the planning of Brasilia.
He maintained a profound friendship with them
for years. There were good and bad moments, as it
also had happened with that country. Le Corbusier’s
project for the United Nations building in New
York in 1946, caused a great resentment in Oscar
14 In January 1999, the author of these lines had the opportunity to meet
and interview Oscar Niemeyer in his studio in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro. The
architect was 92 years old then. Even then, the wounds did not appear to have
26
Niemeyer, who had been a great admirer of the
Swiss architect.14 (Fig. 9) Those words, “Bravo, Oscar,
bravo!” at the Plaza dos Tres Poderes in Brasilia,
were perhaps meant as a means of expressing his
desire to put an end to their differences. “Exactly
thirty years, represent the time needed for an idea
to be assimilated by public opinion. Thirty years just
passed”. This letter from Le Corbusier to Lucio Costa
(12/1/1963), is considered the end of his relationship
with Brazil.
healed, was clearly palpable resentment toward Le Corbusier, avoiding time and
again refer to him when he was asked, but anyway without making any negative
comment.