Brasília
1958
Sou a favor de uma liberdade plástica quase ilimitada, que constitua, em primeiro lugar, um convite à imaginação, às formas novas e belas, capazes de supreender e emocionar pelo que representem de novo e criador; liberdade que possibilite uma atmosfera de êxtase, de sonho e poesia. [...]
Formas novas, que surpreendessem pela leveza e liberdade de criação. Formas que não pesassem no chão, como uma imposição técnica, mas que mantivessem os palácios como que suspensos, leves e brancos, nas noites sem fim do Planalto. Formas de surpresa e emoção, que alheassem o visitante dos problemas difíceis, às vezes invencíveis, que a vida a todos aflige.
Oscar Niemeyer 1960
Minha Experiência em Brasília,
Oscar Niemeyer 1961
2001: A Space Odyssey
1968
2001, on the other hand, is basically a visual, nonverbal experience. It avoids intellectual verbalization and reaches the viewer’s subconscious in a way that is essentially poetic and philosophic. The film thus becomes a subjective experience which hits the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does, or painting. [...]
I think that 2001, like music, succeeds in short-circuiting the rigid surface cultural blocks that shackle our consciousness to narrowly limited areas of experience and is able to cut directly through to areas of emotional comprehension. In two hours and forty minutes of film there are only forty minutes of dialogue.
Stanley Kubrick 1969
The Film Director as Superstar,
Joseph Gelmis 1970
Two projects separated by 10 years and 10.000km. One in architecture and urbanism, another in moving pictures, both by infamous authors. Reality versus fiction.
A strange and mysterious portal connects these two – at first sight – very different realities. Besides the fact that both fulfil an ideal of modernism present at the time, and explore new grounds for mankind; it seems that there has been some kind of dialogue between them. A bit like two brothers that have never met each other but keep some cosmological connection, a creative quantum entanglement.
Many different questions pop into mind when one starts to look more carefully into both projects. Did Stanley Kubrick ever met Oscar Niemeyer? Was Kubrick ever in Brasilia before he made 2001? If not, was Kubrick fascinated by Niemeyer’s architecture or with brazilian modernism? Is this pure chance?
These questions may be impossible to answer, nonetheless they still leave room for explorations. This is a symmetrical narrative, that draws parallels between the utopic city of Brasília and the uncanny 2001: A Space Odyssey. It invites the viewer to engage with these questions through a visual and compelling comparison of two distant yet connected subjects.
Brasília
1958
Sou a favor de uma liberdade plástica quase ilimitada, que constitua, em primeiro lugar, um convite à imaginação, às formas novas e belas, capazes de supreender e emocionar pelo que representem de novo e criador; liberdade que possibilite uma atmosfera de êxtase, de sonho e poesia. [...]
Formas novas, que surpreendessem pela leveza e liberdade de criação. Formas que não pesassem no chão, como uma imposição técnica, mas que mantivessem os palácios como que suspensos, leves e brancos, nas noites sem fim do Planalto. Formas de surpresa e emoção, que alheassem o visitante dos problemas difíceis, às vezes invencíveis, que a vida a todos aflige.
Oscar Niemeyer 1960
Minha Experiência em Brasília,
Oscar Niemeyer 1961
2001: A Space Odyssey
1968
2001, on the other hand, is basically a visual, nonverbal experience. It avoids intellectual verbalization and reaches the viewer’s subconscious in a way that is essentially poetic and philosophic. The film thus becomes a subjective experience which hits the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does, or painting. [...]
I think that 2001, like music, succeeds in short-circuiting the rigid surface cultural blocks that shackle our consciousness to narrowly limited areas of experience and is able to cut directly through to areas of emotional comprehension. In two hours and forty minutes of film there are only forty minutes of dialogue.
Stanley Kubrick 1969
The Film Director as Superstar,
Joseph Gelmis 1970
Two projects separated by 10 years and 10.000km. One in architecture and urbanism, another in moving pictures, both by infamous authors. Reality versus fiction.
A strange and mysterious portal connects these two – at first sight – very different realities. Besides the fact that both fulfil an ideal of modernism present at the time, and explore new grounds for mankind; it seems that there has been some kind of dialogue between them. A bit like two brothers that have never met each other but keep some cosmological connection, a creative quantum entanglement.
Many different questions pop into mind when one starts to look more carefully into both projects. Did Stanley Kubrick ever met Oscar Niemeyer? Was Kubrick ever in Brasilia before he made 2001? If not, was Kubrick fascinated by Niemeyer’s architecture or with brazilian modernism? Is this pure chance?
These are tough questions to answer, nonetheless they still leave room for explorations. This is a symmetrical narrative, that explores the similarities between the utopic city of Brasília and the uncanny 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's an invitation to the visitor to go through these questions, regarding these two subjects, in a visual and compelling comparison.
@brasilia2001