UNESCO World Heritage listed does not necessarily mean beautiful

With a need to change flights in Brasilia, I decided to add in a stopover so as to see this strange city.  Inaugurated in 1960, it was apparently built in 41 months following the decision of the Brazilian president of the time, Kubitscheck, to move the capital there.  The main buildings - that led to its UNESCO listing - were all designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who was a big fan of concrete.  It seems he liked open space, too - especially open space covered in concrete.

I guess at the time it looked bold and futuristic, but now those 'iconic' 28-storey towers just look to me like concrete tower blocks, of the kind I would expect to see in some unfortunate housing estate in Birmingham.  'Brutalist' is the term I think we use for it these days.

I suppose the Metropolitan Cathedral still has something going for it, though I'm not sure about that bell-tower.  Again, I suppose it was futuristic in 1960, but now just looks a bit odd.

This is the Justice statue in front of the Supreme Federal Court:

Just too bare, too much concrete and not enough plants.

The city is certainly not designed for pedestrians, with even more space given over to roads than to the concrete plazas.  However I spent two days tramping its streets, to see as much as I could of this truly bizarre city.  I got to go inside some of the buildings, including a rather good hour-long tour of the National Congress Palace.  The Senate Plenary Hall (the parliament), inside the down-turned dome to the right of the first photo, was quite spectacular and its design way ahead of our ancient British parliament, as each member has a designated seat, all of which are connected up, with digital sign-in and electronic voting (buttons for yes, no and abstain).

The city does do stained glass rather well though - this in one wall of the Pantheon of the Fatherland and Freedom - quite beautiful:

I also trekked the two hours along one 'wing' of the city (which was planned in the shape of a bird or aeroplane) to the Temple of Goodwill, supposedly the most visited monument in Brasilia, but in reality for a pretty minority audience (you walk around a spiral of black granite that represents the difficult path so far in your life, and reaching a small bronze plaque in the middle of the temple, you are standing under the world's largest single crystal (apparently), from where the path spirals out again but this time in white, symbolisng re-emergence on a new path...).  Underneath is a well-appointed 'Egyptian room' (with copies of ancient Egyptian paintings on the walls, a bust of Nefertiti and so on), with no explanation given as to what this has to do with the temple above. I guess the kind of people who believe that crystals have special energy fields are also quite often into Egyptology?  My favourite aspect of this place was the pair of burrowing owls sitting on the grass outside!

The Sanctuary of Dom Bosco was rather nicer, nothing strange about the place but a lovely peaceful feeling from the blue light from another nice example of the use of stained glass:

Can't say that I'm too unhappy to be moving on from here though, flying tomorrow to Cuiaba to start my holiday in the Pantanal!