Brasilia in pictures: 50 great buildings, 50 years
You don't have to be an architecture expert to have heard of Brasilia. Contemporary Brazil's renowned capital was purpose-built in 1960, featuring a grand urban plan by Lúcio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer as its iconic principle architect and Roberto Burle Marx as the landscape designer, plus buildings from some of the country's finest architects.
Its urban planning design has been an example and universal reference to architects and urban planners ever since. And it was all beautifully designed in the era's most forward thinking style - the International Style - which Brazil took and made its own.
Today, home to some 2.6 million Brazilians and a listed UNESCO World Heritage Site, Brasilia is marking its 50th anniversary. Photographer Leonardo Finotti visited the Brazilian capital for this celebration and presented us with 50 great Brasilia buildings, one for each year of the city's much celebrated existence.
From famous Niemeyer buildings, to lesser known classic modernist structures like the Sarah Hospital by João Filgueiras Lima (Lelé) and the Nilson Nelson Arena by Ícaro Castro Mello - and even a few distinguished and beautiful private residences - our map of Brasilia has it all.
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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
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