Facade of the National Congress Palace
The 10th G20 Parliamentary Speakers’ Summit (P20) will be held in Brasilia, at the National Congress Palace.
Founded in 1960 to be the capital of Brazil, Brasília is the materialization of former President Juscelino Kubitschek’s dream of establishing a new seat of the Brazilian Republic on the Central Plateau, the geographical centre of the country.
Two great masters of Brazilian architecture are responsible for the monumental scale of Brasilia: Lúcio Costa, winner of the competition for the urban design of the new capital (the so-called Pilot Plan), and Oscar Niemeyer, responsible for the architectural design of the seats of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. The Praça dos Três Poderes, in the shape of an equilateral triangle, juxtaposes the National Congress, the Supreme Court and the Planalto Palace. In it, urbanism and architecture merge into a single, inseparable whole.
Brasília was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, making it the largest listed perimeter in the world.
Built between 1957 and 1960, the National Congress Palace, the seat of the two legislative houses, the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate, is a visual landmark not only of the square, but also of the entire Esplanade of Ministries, located in front of it.
View of the Esplanada dos Ministérios
Taking as one of its references the United Nations building in New York (in whose design Niemeyer also participated), the seat of the Brazilian Parliament combines the elegance of pure volumes and the strength of powerful structural solutions in two large domes that singularize and associate both legislative houses—the Chamber of Deputies (concave) and the Federal Senate (convex).
The solution in domes symbolically emulates elements adopted since classical antiquity, but which in Brasilia, under the modernist trait, acquires prominence in the capital’s urban scene. The interiors of the large domes house both the plenary halls where the country’s biggest political deliberations take place.
The great platform on which both structures rest is called, in the original designs, the people’s square and under it flows the democracy of the Brazilian legislature. In addition to the strength of the Palace’s external solution, the interiors of the National Congress house notable collections of art and furniture from the Brazilian Government. This unique synthesis of Brazilianness features works by the notable artists Athos Bulcão, Marianne Peretti, Di Cavalcanti and Anna Maria Niemeyer, among other great names.
Araguaia (1977). Artist: Marianne Peretti
In 2021, the National Congress was declared a permanent landmark due to its cultural significance in Brazilian historiography.
In 2024, the National Congress Palace reinforces its parliamentary vocation and evokes its genesis in the great international deliberations to be the headquarters of the P20 in Brazil.
Fragmento de anjo [Angel’s fragment] (1977). Artist: Alfredo Ceschiatti
Ventania [Gale] (1971). Artist: Athos Bulcão
Water mirror of the National Congress Palace
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