Escenificación cívica en Brasilia

Since its construction between 1957 and 1960, the new federal capital of Brazil, Brasília, has been inseparable from state affairs and mass media. Its modernist architecture was conceived as a symbol of democracy in the postwar years and as a stage on which political rituals and collective demonstrations unfolded before cameras and film. This short essay focuses on a particular ceremonial ramp and on Brasília’s unstable civic representations over time as captured by photojournalism, suggesting that civicness depends less on architectural form than on how spaces are appropriated and reproduced.