In this text, Mário Pedrosa looks to the thinking of Wilhelm Worringer, specifically to his concept of “oasis civilization,” which refers to people who settle in a territory artificially without any cultural reference or connection to the local natural setting. Applied to the Americas, the notion would explain how exogenous cultures are absorbed by means of technical mastery that transforms them and denies nature. Pedrosa asserts that “we are condemned to the modern.” Since its establishment, Brasilia has followed the paths of an occupied terrain or territory. Pedrosa points out contradictions in the process and comments on the competition for the Pilot Plan for the new capital city, which was won by architect and urbanist Lucio Costa; he defends the proposal for its formal clarity and utopian sensibility. Pedrosa recognizes the polemic unleashed by its monumentality but expresses his respect for any global conception that touches the human spirit. Finally, the author addresses the three-dimensionality and continuous spatial articulation of the city plan. 

This essay by Mário Pedrosa takes a stance on the project awarded to architect and urban planner Lúcio Costa for the design of the city of Brasilia. Although Pedrosa opposed the idea of moving the capital city, the concept Costa developed moves him as a utopian alternative for both the city and for art. On that basis, Pedrosa addresses the idea of the “integration and synthesis of the arts” that the new city makes possible. Intellectual and politician Mário Pedrosa (1900–1981) was unquestionably the pivotal figure in twentieth-century Brazilian art theory and criticism. He was the editor of the international politics section of Diário da Noite. He joined the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) in the twenties, and in 1932, he was arrested for his political activism as a Trotskyite. During the Estado Novo under Getúlio Vargas, Pedrosa lived in exile in France and New York, returning to Brazil after World War II. A contributor to Correio da Manhã, he later founded the weekly Vanguarda Socialista due to his anti-Stalinist position. For his doctoral thesis in aesthetics entitled “Da natureza afetiva da forma na obra de arte” (1949) presented at the Faculdade de Arquitetura (Río), he made use of his background in philosophy and Gestalt psychology. He was one of the founders of International Association of Art Critics (AICA) (1948) and he helped organize the International Congress of Art Critics (Brasília, 1959). From 1950 to 1954, he wrote a column on art for Tribuna da Imprensa, and in that decade, he was a member of the organizing committee for the second and third São Paulo Biennials (1953 and 1955 respectively) before becoming the director of the MAM-SP from 1961 to 1963. He was the secretary of the National Council of Culture during Jânio Quadros’s brief term as president. During the military dictatorship in Brazil, he sought exile in Chile where he directed the Museo de la Solidaridad in Santiago. After the coup under Pinochet (1973), he went to Havana where he served as secretary of the Museo de la Resistencia Salvador Allende. He did not return to Brazil until 1977, at the beginning of the amnesty. In 1980, he was the first person to sign the manifesto founding the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT). Part of his vast library (some eight thousand volumes) is available at the Biblioteca Nacional in Río de Janeiro. For additional texts by Mário Pedrosa, see “Abstração ou figuração ou realismo?” (ICAA digital archive doc. no. 1085648), “L'architecture moderne au Brésil” (doc. no. 1086489), “Arquitetura e crítica de arte” (doc. no. 1086553), “Arte Ambiental, arte pós-moderna, Helio Oiticica” (doc. no. 1110622), “Arte infantil” (doc. no. 1110389), “Arte signográfica” (doc. no. 1085678), “Arte, necessidade vital” (doc. no. 1110355), “O "bicho-da-seda" na produção em massa” (doc. no. 1110436), “Bienal e participação... do povo” (doc. no. 1111108), “A cidade nova, síntese das artes” (doc. no. 1086503), “Crise do condicionamento artístico” (doc. no. 1110433), “Crise nas artes individuais” (doc. no. 1110406), “Crise ou revolução do objeto: homenagem a André Breton” (doc. no. 1110434), “Da abstração a auto-expressão” (doc. no. 1085707), “Da dissolução do objeto ao vanguardismo brasileiro” (doc. no. 1110435), “Da lógica na apreciação artística” (doc. no. 1086587), “Debate: o artista e a crítica” (doc. no. 1110951), “Do "informal" e seus equívocos” (doc. no. 1085759), “Do porco empalhado ou os critérios da crítica” (doc. no. 1110442), “Espaço e arquitetura” (doc. no. 1087020), “Flores do abismo” (doc. no. 780902), “Grupo Frente” (doc. no. 1083731), “Introdução à arquitetura brasileira-I; Introdução à arquitetura brasileira-I” (doc. no. 1086620), “Introdução ao tema inaugural: A cidade nova, obra de arte” (doc. no. 1110409), “Intróito à Bienal” (doc. no. 1090338), “Lições do Congresso de Críticos” (doc. no. 1110410), “Lições do congresso internacional de críticos” (doc. no. 1086667), “MAM: reconstrução” (doc. no. 1111078), “A máquina, Calder, Léger e outros” (doc. no. 1085302), “Mestres da arte virgem” (doc. no. 1110393), “O novo MAM terá cinco museus. É a proposta de Mário Pedrosa” (doc. no. 1110466), “Opinião... opinião... Opinião...” (doc. no. 1090568), “O painel de Tiradentes” (doc. no. 1111004), “Parecer sôbre o "CORE" da Cidade Universitária” (doc. no. 1110830), “Paulistas e cariocas” (doc. no. 1085056), “Pernambuco, Cícero Dias e Paris” (doc. no. 1110816), ” Pintura brasileira e moda internacional” (doc. no. 1126469), “Problemas da pintura brasileira” (doc. no. 1075171), “Quinquilharia e pop-art” (doc. no. 1110437), (untitled) [“Se alguém tem ainda a intenção de falar (…)”] (doc. no. 1086986), and “Variações sem tema ou arte da retaguarda” (doc. no. 808010).