Monumental Axis

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{{Infobox road

| country = BRA

| state = DF

| name = Eixo Monumental

| photo = Fotos_produzidas_pelo_Senado_(36041796984)_(edited).jpg

| length_km = 16

| type = Avenue

| route = DF-002

| translation = Monumental Axis

| photo_notes = The Monumental Axis in Brasília seen from sky

| terminus_a = Rodoferroviária de Brasília

| terminus_b = Three Powers Plaza

}}

The Monumental Axis ({{langx|pt-BR|Eixo Monumental}}) is the central and main avenue in Brasília's city design. The avenue begins on the National Congress of Brazil building and is considered part of the DF-002 road. Its first section is known as "Ministries Esplanade" ({{lang|pt-BR|Esplanada dos Ministérios}}), as it is surrounded the buildings of government ministries. Many important government buildings, monuments, and memorials are located on the Monumental Axis.

It is 16 kilometers long, beginning at the Rodoferroviária de Brasília, and ending at the Praça dos Três Poderes. It was created by Lúcio Costa during the construction of Brasília's Plano Piloto, connecting with the Highway Axis ({{Lang|pt-BR|Eixo Rodoviário}}) at the Pilot Plan Bus Station.{{Cite web |last=Tavares |first=Jamila |date=2011-12-12 |title=Monumental, Eixo une traço de Lucio Costa às curvas de Niemeyer |url=https://g1.globo.com/distrito-federal/noticia/2011/12/monumental-eixo-une-traco-de-lucio-costa-curvas-de-niemeyer.html |access-date=2024-02-01 |website=Distrito Federal |language=pt-BR}}{{Cite web |last=Crespo |first=Raphael |date=2023-03-03 |title=Eixo Monumental: conheça a longa e mais influente avenida do Distrito Federal |url=https://meulugar.quintoandar.com.br/eixo-monumental/ |access-date=2024-02-01 |website=MeuLugar |language=pt-BR}}{{Cite web |last=Rodrigues |first=Gizella |date=2019-05-16 |title=Dois eixos e uma cidade única |url=https://agenciabrasilia.df.gov.br/2019/05/16/o-cruzamento-de-dois-eixos-e-uma-cidade-unica/agenciabrasilia.df.gov.br |access-date=2024-02-01 |website=Agência Brasília |language=pt-BR}}

A common urban legend persists that the Monumental Axis is the widest road in the world, where "[100 to 160] cars can drive side by side". This is untrue, as the road consists of two avenues with six lanes on either side; a total of twelve lanes. However, the street has been featured in the Guinness Book of Records as having the widest median strip of a highway in the world. On April 21, 2008, a year before they formally broke up, the Mexican pop group RBD performed a free concert to a crowd of 500,000 on the Monumental Axis{{cite web|title=Show RBD no Brasil|url=http://www.tudoemfoco.com.br/show-rbd-no-brasil.html|website=tudoemfoco.com.br|accessdate=5 May 2016}} during Empezar Desde Cero Tour 2008. The show was to celebrate the 48th Anniversary of the founding of Brasília. It was recorded and released on DVD with the title Live in Brasilia. The crowd in attendance was the largest for which the group had performed.

History

The Monumental Axis emerged together with Lúcio Costa's urban planning proposal for the Pilot Plan, submitted to the competition committee for the Pilot Plan for the New Capital of Brazil in 1957.{{Cite web |last=Gastronomia |first=CNN Viagem & |title=O que é o Eixo Monumental e o que ver na avenida mais importante de Brasília |url=https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/viagemegastronomia/viagem/o-que-e-o-eixo-monumental-e-o-que-ver-na-avenida-mais-importante-de-brasilia/ |access-date=2025-04-21 |website=CNN Brasil V&G |language=pt-BR}} In the justification report, which was considered a decisive factor in his victory, Lúcio describes how he arrived at the design: in item 1, he makes a cross, according to him, a “primary gesture of those who mark a place or take possession of it”. Although the Eixo Monumental is known by the population as the “body of the airplane” due to a popular belief that the Plano Piloto was made in the shape of an aircraft, Lúcio stated in the report that he thought of a cross, and furthermore, the name Plano Piloto was not his creation, being a common term for general plans of modern urbanism.{{Cite web |date=2019-06-04 |title=Avião ou borboleta? Entenda as inspirações de Lúcio Costa para o projeto de Brasília |url=https://g1.globo.com/df/distrito-federal/noticia/2019/06/04/aviao-ou-borboleta-entenda-as-inspiracoes-de-lucio-costa-para-o-projeto-de-brasilia.ghtml |access-date=2025-04-21 |website=G1 |language=pt-br}}

In the following sections, he curves one of the axes and justifies his choice for it to be the residential axis of the project, leaving the axis that remained straight as the “monumental axis of the system”, calling the avenue by its name for the first time. The two would have opposite and complementary functions: the residential axis would be for everyday, bucolic life, and the monumental axis, as the name suggests, would be for the great monumental palaces, which would symbolize the capital, the institutions and Brazil itself, and would therefore be more open and have a tourist vocation.{{Cite web |title=Relatório do Plano Piloto de Brasília - Lúcio Costa |url=http://doc.brazilia.jor.br/plano-piloto-Brasilia/relatorio-Lucio-Costa.shtml |access-date=2025-04-21 |website=doc.brazilia.jor.br}}

After focusing on the details of the road axis, he returns to the monumental axis in item 9, where he describes the ideas for the Three Powers Square, the military and cultural sectors and the Esplanade of Ministries, thought of as a mall - an English term for wide avenues, like the Las Vegas Strip or the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Other inspirations cited in the document are London's Piccadilly Circus, New York's Times Square and Paris' Champs-Élysées Avenue.{{Cite web |title=50 anos do concurso para Brasília – um breve histórico |url=https://vitruvius.com.br/index.php/revistas/read/arquitextos/08.086/234 |access-date=2025-04-21 |website=vitruvius.com.br}}{{Cite web |date=2015-04-21 |title=Brasília, 55 anos: conheça os projetos que pensaram a capital do país |url=https://memoria.ebc.com.br/cultura/2015/04/7-brasilia-possiveis |access-date=2025-04-21 |website=EBC |language=pt-br}}{{maplink|frame=yes|frame-width=240|zoom=11|type=point}}

Major sites on the Monumental Axis

class="wikitable"

!Photo

!Site

90px

| Cathedral of Brasília
Catedral Metropolitana Nossa Senhora Aparecida

90px

| Cultural Complex of the Republic
Complexo Cultural da República
(National Museum and National Library)

90px

| Ministries Esplanade
Esplanada dos Ministérios

90px

| Itamaraty Palace
Ministério das Relações Exteriores
(Ministry of External Relations)

90px

| National Congress
Congresso Nacional

90px

| Supreme Federal Court
Supremo Tribunal Federal or STF

90px

| Pantheon of the Fatherland and Freedom
Panteão da Pátria e da Liberdade

90px

| JK Memorial
Memorial JK

90px

| Television Tower
Torre de TV de Brasília

90px

| Three Powers Plaza
Praça dos Três Poderes

90px

| Planalto Palace
Palácio do Planalto
(Presidential office)

90px

| Justice Palace
Palácio da Justiça
(Ministry of Justice)

90px

|States Lane

Proposals for the area

= Cultural Complex of the Republic =

The complex, which currently consists of two buildings, the National Museum and the National Library, has plans to build a symphonic concert hall, an opera house, an auditorium for chamber music and possibly two other cultural buildings. However, few initiatives to complete the Complex have taken place to date.{{Cite web |title=Brasília – Conjunto Cultural da República {{!}} ipatrimônio |url=https://www.ipatrimonio.org/brasilia-conjunto-cultural-da-republica/ |access-date=2023-11-18 |language=pt-BR}}