Espaço Lúcio Costa, Thematic museum beneath Three Powers Plaza, Brasília, Brazil
Espaço Lúcio Costa is a museum at Three Powers Plaza dedicated to the architecture and urban planning of Brasília. The collection features designs, photographs, and documents that record how this modern capital came into being.
The museum opened on 27 February 1992, the day Lúcio Costa turned ninety; Oscar Niemeyer designed it as a discreet underground building beneath Three Powers Plaza, funded by the Bradesco Foundation. Costa had won the 1957 national competition for the Pilot Plan of the new capital, inaugurated in 1960. The exhibition layout was conceived by Costa himself.
The space shows how people planned and built Brasília from scratch as a new city. What you see reflects the ideas that shaped the modern design and layout of this capital.
The museum sits centrally at Three Powers Plaza near government buildings. Visitors should plan a daytime visit and allow time to explore the exhibition at a comfortable pace.
The gallery displays copies, not originals, of the sketches and report Lúcio Costa submitted in 1957 to the international jury of the Pilot Plan competition. The huge model at the centre was built in 1988 over about eleven months and toured abroad, shown in Buenos Aires, Prague and elsewhere, before reaching the museum on 27 February 1992.
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