The white marbles of Brasília, a World Heritage site and capital of Brazil

Abstract

Created in the central and western part of Brazil to be the new capital of the country, Brasília is a definitive example of modernist twentieth-century urbanism and was named a Cultural Heritage Property by UNESCO in 1987. It was built in just four years (1956–60), following a design by urbanist Lúcio Costa and architect Oscar Niemeyer. However, despite the worldwide recognition of the architectural value of the buildings, the extensive use of white marbles as cladding is scarcely mentioned in the literature. Surveys conducted in this work indicate that the majority of the marble was sourced primarily from the Italva region (Rio de Janeiro), and probably, in minor quantities, from Cachoeiro de Itapemirim region (Espírito Santo). Available technological data for rocks from those regions revealed their suitable engineering properties as natural stone. Currently, although most of the slabs still remain on the buildings, the preservation of this world cultural heritage is urgent, as pointed out by UNESCO. For this purpose, the potential designation under the name the Brasília white marbles as a Global Heritage Stone Resource would be very beneficial, encouraging the availability of these natural stones for conservation and restoration.

Building Granite Characterisation, Construction Phases, Mason’s Marks and Glyptography of Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe Church, Mouçós e Lamares, Galicia-North Portugal Euroregion

“…In the frame of this new interest, the concept of Heritage stone (Cooper 2010;Cooper et al 2013a, b;Kaur et al 2020) refers to stones that have a special relevance in human culture. For example, the porphyries from Sweden (Wikström et al 2015); "Petit granit" and Lede stone from Belgium (Pereira et al 2015;De Kock et al 2015); slates from the Iberian peninsula (Cardenes et al 2015); granites such as Piedra Berroqueña, of Madrid (Spain) (Freire-Lista et al 2015a, b;Fort 2016, 2019a, b) and Rosa Beta granite from Italy (Careddu and Grillo 2015); Larvikites from Norway (Heldal et al 2015); gneisses such as Facoidal gneiss from Brazil (Castro et al 2021); marbles, such as the one from Carrara in Italy (Primavori 2015;Murru et al 2018), the white marbles of Brasília (Frascá et al 2020), Estremoz marbles from Portugal (Lopes and Martins 2015) and Macael marble from Spain (Navarro et al 2019); and limestones such Lioz limestone from Portugal (Silva 2019), Bath and Purbeck limestones from England (Marker 2015); Villamayor sandstone from Salamanca (NW of Spain) (García-Talegón et al 2015), and Sydney sandstone from Australia (Cooper et al 2015). These stones have been widely used and with them, important buildings have been built that have marked the history of humankind (Siegesmund et al 2014).…”

Pedras do patrimônio da IUGS: histórico e requisitos

“…Até hoje, não houve designação de rochas brasileiras, embora o país conte com rico e variado patrimônio de pedra e várias candidatas potenciais (Del Lama e Costa, 2022). Alguns exemplos são o já mencionado Gnaisse Facoidal; a pedra-sabão e os quartzitos e xistos de Minas Gerais, onipresentes em tantas cidades históricas (Costa, 2013(Costa, , 2015; os dumortierita quartzitos e sodalita sienitos da Bahia, famosos por sua cor azul e valorizados globalmente (Frascá e Castro, 2022), e os mármores utilizados na construção de Brasília (Frascá et al, 2020). A apresentação de propostas para a designação do Gnaisse Facoidal e do Esteatito de Minas está planejada para 2023.…”

Worldwide examples of global heritage stones: an introduction

“…Frascá et al (2020) focus their attention on this marble, tracing the origin of most of it to the Italva region of Brazil. Their account references many sources in Portuguese.…”