Planned segregation in the early days of Brasília: the case of Vila Amauri

Abstract

This study discusses planned segregation in Brasília during its construction, focusing on the case of Vila Amauri, an informal settlement of candangos that existed from 1959 to 1960, near the National Congress, in a region that, subsequently and in a planned way, was flooded by the waters of Lake Paranoá. We used classic authors from the area of urban sociology to discuss the sociological categories of the city, and, in the second stage, we utilized studies about the dualistic and exclusionary perspective of narratives that defended the modernization of Brazil. Last but not least, we discuss Brasília and the planned segregation of the early days of the capital, based on oral reports which reveal that the appropriation of the space was plural and different from what had been announced by the creators of the city’s project.

vila Amauri; Brasília; modernity; modernization; sociospatial segregation