Núcleo Bandeirante was originally the "Cidade Livre" ("Free City") — the construction camp set up in 1956 for the workers building Brasília. It was meant to be torn down once the city was finished, but its residents stayed, and the camp became the first real neighbourhood with regular streets, shopfronts and shopkeepers — the antithesis of Costa's monumental Pilot Plan.
The old wooden houses are mostly gone now, but the irregular streets, market, and traditional bakeries are still a refreshing change from the rigid superblocks. Worth a short detour to understand what the original migrant workers (candangos) made of a place built for cars.