Why it looks like this

Brasília is what happens when a country builds its capital on empty ground. Lúcio Costa's winning 1957 design — the Plano Piloto — crosses one straight axis of government buildings with a long curved wing of housing. People see the shape as an airplane, a bird or a dragonfly. Building started in 1956; the capital opened in 1960.

On the street layer the design is easy to read: large housing blocks along the wings, the crossing at the centre, and highway-style junctions instead of street corners — a city made for the car, listed by UNESCO in 1987.