Brasilia

15.7931°S, 47.8585°W.

Federal capital of Brazil, designed entirely from scratch by urban planner Lucio Costa and architect Oscar Niemeyer between 1956 and 1960 to relocate the capital from Rio de Janeiro to the geographic interior. The plan, won in a 1957 competition, takes the form of an aircraft or cross when seen from above — the Plano Piloto — with the Monumental Axis as fuselage and residential superblocks as wings. The Three Powers Plaza at the eastern terminus contains the Congress, the Presidential Palace, and the Supreme Court arranged in a precise geometric triangle. Niemeyer's twin Congress towers and inverted-bowl chambers became the visual signature of mid-century modernism in concrete. The city was inaugurated April 21, 1960 — 1,000 days after construction began. Brasilia is the only 20th-century city to be inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

They built a federal capital on empty savanna in three years — and the runway-shaped city has never had its plan altered.