Of all the epithets coined by New York governor Nelson Rockefeller’s opponents to describe his monumental redevelopment plan for the seat of state government in Albany—and there were many, ranging from “Nelson’s Pyramid” to “Rocky’s Edifice Complex” to an array of creative if mostly unprintable plays on the resonance between his notorious penchant for philandering and the primordial symbolism of a nice big tower—the one that must have stung the most was “Brasília North.”
This was not just a riff on the governor’s pharaonic ambition, or a dig at his Freudian drive to outdo a father who, after putting the family name on Rockefeller Center, had become the most famous developer in the world. It was a statementgovernor’s detractors were attacking not only his vanity but one of his core beliefs: a profound faith in the transformative power of modern architecture.
