Brasília's culture lives in concrete and glass: Niemeyer's windowless museum dome, Athos Bulcão's hand-painted tile walls, and sanctuaries lit in twelve shades of blue. Beyond the Plano Piloto, Ceilândia's repente halls and the candango museums tell the other half.
Niemeyer's windowless white dome from 2006 holds rotating contemporary shows across a 14,500m² floor reached by a suspended interior ramp. Free entry, Tuesday to Sunday 09:00–18:30, with photography and video work in the Sala Multiuso.
The ministry palace floats on a reflecting pool planted by Burle Marx. Inside are Maria Martins' bronze O Meteoro, Athos Bulcão panels and Niemeyer's spiral staircase with no handrail. Free guided tours, photo ID required at the gate.
Architect Carlos Alberto Naves ringed the sanctuary with 80 concrete columns filled with Murano glass in twelve shades of blue, darkest at floor level. A 2.5-tonne chandelier of 7,400 glass pieces hangs at the centre. Open daily 07:00–19:00.
Brasília's first church, 1958, a triangular concrete tent Niemeyer sketched in four days. Athos Bulcão wrapped the walls in roughly 3,000 hand-painted blue-and-white tiles of doves and stars — his first major architectural commission.
Niemeyer's 1981 mausoleum for Juscelino Kubitschek: a 28m granite tower holding the president's statue under a curved sickle, with a red-lit crypt below. Inside are his library, his Ford Galaxie and original Plano Piloto drawings.
The Central Bank's basement museum traces Brazilian currency from colonial sugar-trade coins to the Real, alongside the largest gold nugget ever found by hand at Serra Pelada, 60.8kg. Free, Tuesday to Friday 10:00–17:30.
Three galleries in the banking sector run rotating free exhibitions of Brazilian contemporary art, photography and design, plus a small theatre and cinema. The programme turns over roughly every six weeks; Tuesday to Sunday 09:00–21:00.
A Niemeyer-designed hall beside the Teatro Nacional devoted to choro, Brazil's oldest urban instrumental music. Concerts most Wednesday to Saturday nights: seven-string guitar, cavaquinho and pandeiro played to cabaret-style tables.
Niemeyer designed this curved concrete amphitheatre in 1986 for Ceilândia's north-eastern migrants: the home of repente, cordel poetry and improvised verse duels. The shell seats around 350, with cordel booklets sold in the foyer.
The largest north-eastern market in the Centre-West: hundreds of stalls selling carne de sol, rapadura, cordel pamphlets and forró records, with live pé-de-serra bands playing in the food court from midday Friday through Sunday.
The 1957 wooden hospital that treated the candangos who built the capital, now a museum of the construction camps with original photographs, tools and workers' records. Craft studios occupy the old wards; Tuesday to Friday 09:00–17:00.
A superquadra cultural centre named after the Legião Urbana singer, with galleries, two theatres and rehearsal rooms that have carried Brasília's rock and independent theatre scene since the 1980s. Most exhibitions are free.