CONIC

The Story

This complex with several buildings in the South Entertainment Sector (Setor de Diversões Sul) was born in 1966 from Lucio Costa's dream of creating a mix of Piccadilly Circus, Times Square, and Champs-Élysées in the heart of Brasília. In its early years, when it still housed embassies under construction, it was a hotspot for the capital's elite, with bookstores, cinemas, and sophisticated nightclubs. As the embassies moved to their own buildings, the Conic gradually transformed into what it would become: Brasília's bohemian and underground heart. Between the late 60s and early 80s, it housed ten bookstores, eight cinemas, and six nightclubs, including New Aquarius, the first gay nightclub in the DF, opened in the 70s. In the back corridors were Berlim Discos, nicknamed Brasília's Baratos Afins, metal t-shirt shops, musical instrument stores that became stages for emerging bands, cassette tape exchanges, and a mix of skinheads, punks, university students, Goths, and gangs that made Conic a symbol of resistance to the rigidity of the rest of the city. Cine Atlântida was the stage for the incendiary premiere of the film Rock Estrela. Official point of the Brasília Capital do Rock Route.

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