Brasília – the Brazilian capital carved from the savannah 50 years ago – is a hard city to love. I hate to say this while its architect, 104-year-old Oscar Niemeyer, lies ill in a Rio hospital, but Brasília was built for cars and architecture critics, not for people. It’s a place for bureaucrats to have a quiet life, a Bonn in the tropics. Traffic jams are rare, even at 5pm when the ministries empty and everyone sails home along the huge central axis. This is a middle-class town.
50年前兴建于大草原之上的巴西首都巴西利亚是一座很难让人喜爱的城市。我不愿意在其设计者、104岁高龄的奥斯卡·尼迈耶(Oscar Niemeyer)因病住进里约热内卢一家医院的时候这么说,但巴西利亚是为汽车以及建筑评论家、而不是人类建造的。它是官僚们享受平静生活的地方,是热带地区的波恩。这里即便在下午5点也很少出现交通拥堵,那时各部委都已空无一人,所有人都沿着巨大的中轴线驱车回家。这是一座中产阶级的城市。
Admittedly, not everything goes smoothly. In the hotel, the shower is cold and WiFi rarely works. Outside in the soft tropical rain, military police are everywhere, as if the soldiers still governed Brazil. But visiting Brasília recently, I absorbed the sense of a rising country. Just off that main axis, hammering resounds from inside the National Stadium, nearly ready for football’s World Cup of 2014. There and at the Rio Olympics in 2016, Brazil will show itself to the world. Every World Cup has a message. Germany in 2006 presented itself as a “normal country that had given its past a place. South Africa in 2010 wanted to be “world class. But Brazil’s aim is “clean games. Its two tournaments are meant to showcase a transformation: Brazil is attacking corruption.
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