Juscelino Kubitschek , "JK" to Brazilians, president from 1956 to 1961, proved just the man to fix Brazil's attention on the future rather than the past. He combined energy and imagination with integrity and great political skill, acquired in the hard school of the politics of Minas Gerais, one of the main nurseries of political talent in Brazil. Although the tensions in the political system were still there - constitutionalists in the armed forces had to stage a pre-emptive coup to allow him to take office - Kubitschek was able to serve out his full term, still the only elected civilian president to do so in modern times. And he left a permanent reminder of the most successful postwar presidency in the form of the country's new capital, Brasília, deep in the Planalto Central.

"Fifty years in five!" was his election slogan, and his economic programme lived up to its ambitious billing. His term saw a spurt in growth rates that was the platform for the "economic miracle" of the next decade; the economic boom led to wider prosperity and renewed national confidence. Kubitschek drew on both in the flight of inspired imagination that led to the building of Brasília .

It could so easily have been an expensive disaster, a purpose-built capital miles from anywhere, the personal brainchild of a president anxious to make his mark. But Kubitschek implanted the idea in the national imagination by portraying it as a renewed statement of faith in the interior, a symbol of national integration and a better future for all Brazilians, not just those in the South. He brought it off with great panache, bringing in the extravagantly talented Oscar Niemeyer , whose brief was to come up with a revolutionary city layout and the architecture to go with it. Kubitschek spent almost every weekend on the huge building site that became the city, consulted on the smallest details and had the satisfaction of handing over to his successor, Jânio Quadros , in the newly inaugurated capital.