Brasília, Modernist Utopias: Photos by Vincent Fournier

French photographer Vincent Fournier captures intriguing views of Brazil’s planned capital city, from his unique perspective.

“My work on the city of Brasilia comes from a mixture of fascination and nostalgia for the stories and representations of the Future.”

“Indeed, the city and capital of Brazil designed by Oscar Niemeyer, and which was built in 4 years in the middle of a desert, embodies the vision of the future of in the 1960s. The ‘pilot plan’, conceived in 1957 by the planner Lucio Costa, coincided with the beginning of the space age and the first artificial satellite of Earth: Sputnik.

This was the golden age of the space age, and the city of Brasilia, with its air of flying saucer-like architecture that seemed to have landed in the middle of nowhere, shows the nostalgia and the dream of a future frozen in time. The case is unique in its size and scope, an entire city, and by its state of conservation, the pilot plan of the city has remained unchanged because of its UNESCO World Heritage designation. Brasilia, a fossilised modernist temple in a utopian future, asserts itself as a time capsule.”

— Vincent Fournier

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