Dark tourism in the brightest of cities

Before Brasilia was created as the country’s new capital in 1960, Rio de Janeiro had been the focus of Brazil’s economic, cultural and political life. Set mid-way between the Brazilian–Bolivian border and the Atlantic ocean, Brasilia was long in the planning, its conception reaching back to the nineteenth century, the idea of a more centrally placed capital away from the eastern corridor an idea that many of the country’s politicians had long considered with enthusiasm and pride. In time the city would become famous for its striking and visionary architecture, revered as a landmark of town planning and eventually designated a UNESCO world heritage site, but Brasilia has never really eclipsed Rio. ¹ Designed and laid out by an altogether surer hand, Rio is a place at once glamorous and enchanting, compelling in its natural beauty and setting, a city that never fails to impress and delight. ² Despite the intrusions of colonial and post-independence city planning and development, despite even the mismanagement, political corruption and chronic inequality that has at times sullied its reputation, the city exercises an intoxicating appeal. When the Portuguese Royal Court fled from Napoleonic forces in 1807, they set Portugal and Brazil – as well as Rio – on a very different path. With a retinue of 15,000, the transfer of the Portuguese court to Brazil, where it produced a ‘metropolitan reversal’ and saw Portugal governed from the New World, created the conditions for Brazilian independence. Rather than continue to regard Brazil as a colony, the monarchy became infatuated with it, and with Rio in particular, where it built palaces and gardens, established schools and hospitals, and in the end simply refused to return ‘home’. ³ From a swampy outpost of the Portuguese empire, inhabited by pirates, runaway slaves and criminals, Rio was transformed into a profitable port and city, where coffee and sugar cane were produced, where gold was brought from the interior and sold, and where the granite hills and rainforest were steadily cleared and the shoreline opened.