On New Year's Eve, we decided to go to the tomb and memorial for President Juscelina Kubitschek, also known as JK. He was the president of Brazil who decided to fulfill the professor of the Portuguese Saint Dom Bosco, and establish the capitol city of Brazil in the interior of Brazil. Last year, the city celebrated it's 50th anniversary when the seat of government officially moved here from Rio de Janeiro. Building Brasilia was quite and amazing feat of ingenuity, engineering, and willpower. The core of the city was designed and built in about 6 years. The design of the city also reflects the ideals of the planners in their views of futurism and the ideal society.
This particular monument was also designed by the master architect for Brasilia, Oscar Neimeyer, a native of Rio de Janeiro known for his grand, minimalist designs. Some of the things he and the chief engineer management to pull off with reinforced concrete are pretty amazing.
This building rises out of the earth like a polished stone, and is surrounded by a tiered pools of water. Guests walk down a ramp and through a tunnel lined with large scale images of JK depicting various events in his life. In glass cases along the path are various artifacts from his life, like his medical kit (he was a doctor).
On the main floor, his library has been reconstructed, and it has sculptures of Rome and Romulus nursing at the teats of a she-wolf, and walls lined with books. Like most other buildings here, the indoors and outdoors are linked, and not much more than a pane of glass separates the two. The kids liked playing hide and seek in this garden just past one of these panes of glass near the library.
Upstairs, there are displays with more artifacts form his career as president, including articles of clothing that he and his wife wore. I really like the inauguration display. Her dresses were pretty fabulous.
These cases contained various medals and plaques given to JK during his presidency by leaders of other nations and organizations. The entire hall was dimly light and sparse. This is also the level that holds JK's coffin.
The coffin is located in a circular room and "floats" on a cushion of light in the center of the room. It is made of a highly polished black granite. Above the coffin is a beautiful stain glass window made of purple, orange, red and yellow panes of glass, and gives the room a red-orange glow.
When one leaves the building on the parking lot side of the building, the Chevrolet Opala that JK was riding in when he died is on display. He died of injuries caused by an automobile accident in 1976, not too many years after returning to Brazil from exile.
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