Praça do Cruzeiro

On the first visit, six jeeps parked up at the site. Ernesto Silva, one of the members of the Commission for the Localization of the New Federal Capital, said: “Everything around us was just blue, an infinite horizon! We stood there for a few moments, mesmerized, feeling so small before ... this vision in our minds' eyes of the modern city that would soon be built there.”

To set up the new capital in the Cerrado savanna, they needed the geodetic latitude and longitude coordinates under the Brazilian Geodetic System. Cross Square was the precise spot where the geodetic mark V-8 was placed, identified by a small flag to the right of the monument. Using Vertex 8, the NOVACAP topographers laid out Lúcio Costa's plan on the ground.

Cross Square was the stage for the first visit by a Brazilian president. With building work about to start on the new capital, President Juscelino Kubitschek visited Brasilia for the first time on October 2, 1956, landing on the provisional runway that had been opened on the site where the Train and Coach Station would be built.

Following that first visit, Presdient Kubitschek remarked:  "It was all just tediously flat. And there was the Cross, with open arms, as if greeting interlopers coming down from the sky. I visited the site where they had put up the Cross and, as it was the highest point in the area, you could see the entire landscape that would be framing the future capital. And the view was wonderful.”

On that first visit, as they stood around the enormous Cross, President Kubitschek, Oscar Niemeyer, Israel Pinheiro—the newly appointed head of NOVACAP—and other dignitaries began to look at the maps that had been prepared for the occasion. As the priority was to build an airport, they agreed on a site and decided that work on the Brasilia International Airport should begin immediately.

So that he could oversee the building of the city, the president wanted a place where he could live temporarily. Around the Cross, “he starting looking at numerous maps before deciding on the site for the pioneer center where the temporary presidential residence would stand, in Fazenda do Gama”. The residence was built by friends of the president and was named Catetinho. 

Building time frame: “The first place that Mr. Juscelino Kubitschek visited was the spot where they put up a cross. There he spoke to journalists, Telling them that Mr. Israel Pinheiro and the other directors at the Urbanizing Company had accepted a time frame of three years and ten months to deliver the essential buildings and services for the government to make its permanent move”.

On November 30, 1956, the Baptist ministers, Elias Brito Sobrinho, Silas de Brito Lopes, Marcelino Cardoso, and James Musgrave Jr., keen to preach Christ's gospel in the new capital, held the first Evangelical service in Brasilia at the site of the Cross. “They prayed together, asking for God's blessing for the city that was being born”.

During the construction phase, Lúcio Costa visited the Brasilia building site just once, on April 2, 1957. A huge clearing had been opened up for the topography works, stretching from Cross Square towards the place where the Square of the Three Powers would stand, and it gave an indication of where the Monumental Axis would be. On that occasion, President Kubitschek took Costa up to the Cross.

Standing next to President Kubitschek at the Cross, looking at the paths leading out towards the city building works, he was captivated by what he saw. “I was terrified. My God, what's this crazy mess I've gotten myself into? That was when I felt the enormous scale of it. It looked like something on another scale, different from the one I'd envisaged for the city, which was, in my mind, much more compact.”

On May 3, 1957, the Cross welcomed more than 15,000 people for Brasilia's first mass, which was celebrated by the Archbishop of São Paulo, Carlos Carmelo de Vasconcellos Motta. President Kubitschek stressed: “On May third, Brasilia became truly Brazilian because Christ has been present in Brazil from the very start. With this first mass, a spiritual seed has been planted in Brasilia.”

Brasilia's first mass was celebrated under a huge canvas awning with temporary floorboards. On the center of the altar, the image of Our Lady Aparecida, the patron saint of Brazil and patroness of Brasilia, was enthroned for the first time. Behind this image was the Brazilian flag.

Before the celebration of mass began, the Cross witnessed the first baptism in the new capital. The Archbishop of São Paulo baptized Brasílio Franklin, whose godparents were President Juscelino Kubitschek and his wife Sara Kubitschek. Oddly, the official NOVACAP source, the REVISTA BRASÍLIA, stated that the boy's godmother was Israel Pinheiro's wife, Coracy Pinheiro.

In the 1950s, radio was the most important means of mass communication. During that first mass on the morning of May 3, 1957, in the midst of a huge construction site where a banana plantation once stood, Cross Square became the scene for the first radio broadcast of a collective event when the National Telecommunications Agency broadcast the religious ceremony to the whole country.

At the end of Brasilia's first mass, the President spoke. “Today is the Day of the Holy Cross, the day when the newborn capital received its Christian baptism. The day when Brasilia, yesterday just a hope but today the youngest child of Brazil, begins to rise up,fully a part of the Christian spirit. This is the day when the new Brazil is baptized. It's a day of hope. It's the day when the city was born.”

During the celebration of this first mass, Cross Square witnessed the first performance by a choir in the new city under construction. The hymns were sung by the Minas Gerais University Female Choir, who also performed Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina's “Missa Brevis”.

A group from the Carajá Indigenous tribe—who live on the island of Bananal—were the first Indigenous delegation to visit the new capital when they came to Brasilia for the first mass. In the words of President Kubitschek: “After the ceremony, the Carajá Indigenous people wanted to pay homage to me. It was a touching display and worth noting. They gave me spears, bordunas (cudgels), tacapes (maces), and arrows. The chief offered me a greeting, calling me Big Chief.”

Given its privileged position and the road linking it directly to the airport, the Cross was one of the favorite first stops for visitors. Having taken in the emerging city as a whole, they would then go down the hill to visit the actual building sites.

As the highest point at the location chosen to build Brasilia—3,845 feet (1,172 m) above sea level—Cross Square witnessed the nearby construction of the No. 1 Water Tower, which was to supply Brasilia's entire drinking water distribution network.

The region around the Cross was initially called Gavião (Hawk) after the large number of hawks found there. However, the local community considered the name derogatory. Given that it was close to Cross Square and that the bus that went through Gavião had Cruzeiro (Cross) on the front, the place was renamed Cruzeiro.

Cross Square's current architecture dates back to 1974 and was designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer. The whole architectural and landscaping renovation centered on the Cross. “The main element in the square is the circular base, with a lawned area in the middle, where the Cross stands The base is enclosed by a C-shape bench.”

Standing opposite Cross Square, the Juscelino Kubitschek Memorial was officially opened on September 12, 1981. On that same day, the mortal remains of President Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira were transferred to the Memorial. Watched over by the Cross that first welcomed him to Brasilia on October 2, 1956, the president's body now rests in a tomb built inside his Memorial.