Egypt, which announced it would be relocating its administrative capital to a new site 45 kilometres away from Cairo, will be looking at Brasília  as a blueprint. Government buildings and foreign embassies will be relocated from central Cairo to the new development, in hopes of relieving congestion and overcrowding in the existing capital. The city is currently home to an estimated 18 million people, but that figure is expected to double by 2050. However, there are already notable differences in the two plans: Egypt’s new capital is almost entirely privately funded, while Brasília  was a government funded endeavour; Egypt’s new capital will not open until at least 2050, while Brasília  was completed in a rush in four years. There are striking similarities too, though, with residential areas being centred around smaller parks with shops and services, with the central administrative services running down the middle. The project is being helmed by SOM, the firm behind the Burj Khalifa and so many other steel and glass skyscrapers.

Because the project is in its early stages, it’s unclear if the new capital will be able to avoid some of the pitfalls that Brasília encountered. “The same criticisms that are being levelled at the Egyptian capital: that it is a vanity project, that it’s diverting resources needed elsewhere in the country, were levelled at Brasília and Kubitschek,” explains Freitas. Egypt, like Brazil, is a country marred by inequality, and it seems unlikely that a privately funded for-profit new capital will prioritise addressing these fundamental concerns. But ultimately, the building of a capital is as much about creating a new icon to revitalise a country’s image than it is about building a functional city1.

Today, shortcomings in Brasília’s original masterplan are more apparent than ever as environmental concerns are forcing us to reassess how we live.

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• 1. Planning an entire city will always be a challenge because inevitably the one is forced to envision how the city will be used not only in the immediate future, but in the decades and even centuries to come. But countries are still designing dedicated cities, even capitals. Myanmar inaugurated it’s “seat of king’s” planned capital Naypyidaw in 2006, to replace the historic capital Yangon. Like with Brasília, the move placed the administrative capital closer to the geographical centre of the country, but unlike Brasília, there were limited plans to populate the city, and images of deserted six-lane motorways and empty stadiums became emblematic of the city. Today, less than a million people live in Naypyidaw, while Yangon remains the defacto leading city with over 7 million inhabitants.