Brasilia’s Pathways of Desire

Theserogue pedestrians don't have an easy task. Virtually the only way toaccess this space is to cross at least six lanes of traffic and thencross another six lanes to exit. The width of the open space is 1/4 ofa mile, which is exactly twice the width of the national mall inWashington D.C., and there is no shade or amenities whatsoever. Theystill make the journey.…

Thisis the network of function over geometry. The paths are trodden out ofconvenience, but they also gently meander. Lewis Mumford recognized this universal tendency back in 1961, just as Brasilia was under construction: "Theslow curve is the natural line of the footwalker, as anyone can observeas he looks back at his tracks in the snow across an open field."

Althoughit's hard to prove conclusively, it looks like safety concerns played apart in determining where the highways were crossed. Several paths seemto converge at points where on-ramps and off-ramps are separated fromthe main flow of traffic. Crossing at these points allows thepedestrian to have breaks of median before having to make the nextstep. It looks as if some people have been willing to sacrifice acertain degree of time in order to cross a little more safely at one ofthese points.

Interestingly, these points of convergence areanalogous to the forces that led to the origins of medieval Paris.