Brazil Center Speaker Series: "Back to the Future: Brasília and the Issue of National Integration"

Professor Otavio Leonídio, Pontifíca Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, will address the role that the construction of Brasília in the late 1950s played in the atavistic ideal of a fully integrated Brazil. He will present an overview of Brazilian Modernist Movement of the 1920s and an outline of Brazil's "Desenvolvimentista/Developmentalist" ideology of the 1950s. Finally, Dr. Leonídio will propose a reading of Lucio Costa's master plan for the new Captial vis-à-vis both ideologies.

Otavio Leonídio is a Professor of Architecture and Urban Design and of History and Theory of Art and Design at Pontifíca Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro. Professor Leonídio is currently working on a book about American artistic practices of the 1960s, such as happenings and performances. His forthcoming publications include an essay about "Post-historical" photography in which he highlights the work of the Brazilian photographer Alair Gomes, and the book Desvio para o vermelho on Brazil's Neo-concrete art movement of the late 1950s. He is a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University during the 2012 calendar year.

For more information, contact the Brazil Center.