The history of Brazil’s bizarre congress buildings

On 8 January 2023, supporters of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro flocked to the Brazilian National Congress to protest against alleged election fraud. When watching the attack, many people unfamiliar with Brazilian politics will have been surprised at the alien architecture surrounding the right-wing insurgents. For those curious as to why the Brazilian National Congress looks the peculiar way it does, it is well worth exploring the building’s history of design and construction.

Prior to 1960, Brazil’s capital was Rio de Janeiro. However, in an effort to geographically centre the country’s political institutions, Brasilia became the new landscape for Brazilian democracy.

In the beginning, Brasilia was nothing more than a barren plateau – a blank canvas with possibilities stretching as far as the imagination. In 1956, President Juscelino Kubitschek gave the architect Oscar Niemeyer an executive licence over Brasilia’s canvas, including Brazil’s national legislature – the National Congress. 

Inspired by the natural beauty of Brazil, such as its mountains and rivers, alongside the female form, Niemeyer emphasised curves over corners. Today, Brasilia’s city skyline flows and ebbs with bouncing silhouettes.

The National Congress follows suit in Niemeyer’s iconic design language. What is most interesting about the design of the National Congress, however, is that Niemeyer also had to consider both the symbolism of a newly-born democratic institution and the practicality of a bustling political space. 

In the previous capital of Rio de Janeiro, the legislature’s two chambers, the Federal Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, were housed in separate buildings. In Brasilia however, Niemeyer physically wedded the two under the same roof.

The Chamber of Deputies (lower chamber) resides beneath the convex “cupola” which can be seen to the right of the building. On a symbolic level, the open dome signals its public functionality. A function that is physically enshrined by the dome which serves as a public gallery, seating 400 people.

To the left, The Federal Senate (higher chamber) is vaulted beneath the concave dome. The elevated status of its membership coincides with the grandeur of the Senate’s domed roof and metal-lined ceiling.  

Beyond these chambers is a protruding twin tower block which houses the legislator’s offices and other administrative businesses. In the middle, the two buildings are connected via a sky bridge.  Although in recent times, this facility has become inadequate for the needs of Senators and Deputies, being in-house is certainly convenient for the busy legislator. 

Upon the completion of the National Congress and the city, President Kubitschek proclaimed Brasilia a ‘national utopia’. Willy Staubli shared the President’s acclamations, praising Niemeyer for a ‘substantial advance in the sphere of modern architecture’, and placed him in the pantheon of the ‘great men’ in the field. 

Others, however, saw Brasilia as a dystopia instead, pronouncing it ‘Orwellian’ and ‘Kafkaesque’.  Strikingly, Niemeyer was amongst the city’s sceptics. As a committed member of Brazil’s Communist Party, Niemeyer felt sentimental towards the construction period of Brasilia and its working culture. And for many, Brasilia’s completion was also its destruction. 

In 1964, four years after the inauguration of the new capital, Brazil’s democracy was overthrown in a coup d’état known colloquially as Golpe de 64 (Coup of 64). In a series of events, right-wing militants and demonstrators ousted President João Goulart, who they alleged to be a communist, and installed a military dictatorship in his place. 

On 8 January 2023, 59 years later, upon the same architectural backdrop, right-wing protestors stormed the National Congress and the rest of Brasilia once again. This time, however, Brazil’s democracy stands firm. 

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