Travel to Brasilia with photographer Vincent Fournier

We tour Brazil's mesmerising capital through the lens of artist and photographer Vincent Fournier and his latest book, Brasília: A Time Capsule

Vincent Fournier Brasilia
(Image credit: Photography: Vincent Fournier)

Brazil's famous capital, Brasilia, a city created from scratch using copious amounts of Modernist architecture, has been photographed by many. The new city was inaugurated on the 21 April 1960 and, including works by some of the country's biggest names in the field, has been studied, visited and loved by architecture enthusiasts and critics alike ever since. So what prompted artist and photographer Vincent Fournier to create his own series there? ‘[It was the challenge of brining] my own vision, my style, to this city that has been so photographed!' he explains and his passion resulted in a beautiful architecture book

In 2012, Fournier embarked on a project to travel to Brasilia and capture its essence, expressed through his own experiences and aesthetic. The series was all wrapped up by 2017, produced during two trips there. So captivating was the result that the MET (the Metropolitan Museum in New York) acquired five of his large formats photographs in 2016. ‘It was a request from Beatrice Galilee, Associate Curator of Architecture and Design in the department of Modern and Contemporary Art,' he recalls. ‘The images are now part of the permanent collection.'

Vincent Fournier Brasilia cover

(Image credit: Photography: Vincent Fournier)

Wondering around Brasilia's generous avenues and well known attractions helped him determine his angles and shots. Setting up each one was fairly easy, he says – the main challenge was ‘getting the authorizations for the access to the different buildings and make pictures.' 

The series includes many of the city's beloved landmarks and several Niemeyer classics, such as the National Museum, the Chamber of Deputies in the dome above the Assembly Room, and the Itamaraty Palace (the home of the Foreign Relations Ministry). Fournier's gaze illuminates them in a unique way, as part of his wider, recurrent themes and fascinations surrounding mythologies of the future, such as space exploration, utopian architecture, artificial intelligence and living technology. Similar topics were investigated during his series titled Space Project, which he launched in 2010. 

RELATED STORY

Space exploration

(Image credit: Vincent Fournier)

‘My interest in the city of Brasilia comes from a mixture of fascination and nostalgia for the stories and representations of the Future,' explains the photographer. ‘Indeed the Brazilian capital designed by Oscar Niemeyer and built in four years in the middle of a desert, embodies the vision of the future in the 60s.'

Vincent Fournier Brasilia congress

(Image credit: Photography: Vincent Fournier)

Vincent Fournier Brasilia tree

(Image credit: Photography: Vincent Fournier)

Vincent Fournier Brasilia detail

(Image credit: Photography: Vincent Fournier)

Vincent Fournier Brasilia interior

(Image credit: Photography: Vincent Fournier)

Vincent Fournier Brasilia spiral staircase

(Image credit: Photography: Vincent Fournier)

Vincent Fournier Brasilia sky

(Image credit: Photography: Vincent Fournier)

Vincent Fournier Brasilia profile

(Image credit: Photography: Vincent Fournier)

Vincent Fournier Brasilia book

(Image credit: Photography: Vincent Fournier)

Vincent Fournier Brasilia white

(Image credit: Photography: Vincent Fournier)

Vincent Fournier Brasilia entrance

(Image credit: Photography: Vincent Fournier)

Vincent Fournier Brasilia blue staircase

(Image credit: Photography: Vincent Fournier)

INFORMATION

Brasilia, Noeve (opens in new tab), €44.90

vincentfournier.co.uk (opens in new tab)

Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture Editor at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018) and Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020).

With contributions from