Planned Capitals
These capitals were drawn before they were built — one architect's ruler laid across an empty plain. Visiting one is the rare chance to walk inside a single, uninterrupted idea.
A planned capital is a city that was drawn before it existed, and the plan is a political document you can walk through.
Somebody decided, and the reason is rarely aesthetic. Nigeria chose ethnically neutral ground in the middle of the country; Pakistan moved out of Karachi in 1960; Brazil went inland in 1956; Myanmar relocated overnight in 2005 at an hour chosen by astrologers. Each portrait names the decision and the year.
The plan predicts the failure. Canberra's designer spent eight years fighting the bureaucracy and was dismissed, and the lake anchoring his geometry was not filled until 1963. Brasília's superblocks work as designed and produce a city with no street corners. What the drawing could not anticipate is the interesting part.
Growth arrives anyway. Informal settlement, traffic and the towns that house the workers are usually outside the plan and inside the reality.
Say what it replaced. Ground is rarely as empty as the founding story claims.
Walk the ceremonial axis, then walk two streets off it.