The idea of moving Brazil's capital to the undeveloped interior dated to 1789, but it took until 1957 for work to begin. Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, along with his mentor, Lucio Costa, created a ''revolutionary'' jet-plane design, with the city's main axis, federal offices and distinctive Cathedral Metropolitana as the ''fuselage'' and its embassies and residences as the ''wings.''
Niemayer, whose design was initially disdained by the government workers who would populate the new city and others, eventually became one of the world’s signature architects. In his home country, he was held in statesman-like reverence.