Work in Progress: Mais où sont les neiges d’anten?

Rio de Janeiro is a city that is as easy to love as Paris. Although I am now returned to Portland after my two and a half weeks in Brazil, the enchantment of Rio has not yet fully worn off, and I hope to carry it with me for as long as I can hang on to it — preferably until I can return, although that is not practicable. Mais où sont les neiges d’anten? The snows of yesteryear are to be found with the scattered sands of Copacabana and Ipanema still in my shoes and in my clothes. There is a sense in which the urban design of Rio evokes a mid-century modern aesthetic. I haven’t been in Brasília, but this was of course the ultimate exercise in mid-century modern urban aesthetics, as the whole city was designed and constructed from scratch. They bulldozed a plot in the interior jungle and built the city on the geographical equivalent of a blank slate. But the forces in Brazil that created Brasília were also evident in Rio de Janeiro. When I was in Petrópolis, at the Palácio Quitandinha, there was on display a magazine fold out of mid-century Rio featured as a tourist destination, and this captured a lot of spirit of what I’m talking about. <a href="https://jnnielsen.medium.com/work-in-progress-mais-o%C3%B9-sont-les-neiges-danten-bb4b8ab78602">Visit Now</a>