Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho (15 December 1907 – 5 December 2012), known as Oscar Niemeyer (), was a Brazilian architect considered to be one of the key figures in the development of modern architecture. Niemeyer was best known for his design of civic buildings for Brasília, a planned city that became Brazil's capital in 1960, as well as his collaboration with other architects on the headquarters of the United Nations in New York. His exploration of the aesthetic possibilities of reinforced concrete was highly influential in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Both lauded and criticized for being a "sculptor of monuments",Magarrey, Paige (December 8, 2007) Niemeyer's Century. Azure Niemeyer was hailed as a great artist and one of the greatest architects of his generation by his supporters.Niemeyer, Gullar, F. (in Portuguese) He said his architecture was strongly influenced by Le Corbusier, but in an interview, assured that this "didn't prevent [his] architecture from going in a different direction".Salvaing, Matthieu (2002) Oscar Niemeyer. Assouline Publishing. Niemeyer was most famous for his use of abstract forms and curves and wrote in his memoirs:
I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. I am attracted to free-flowing, sensual curves. The curves that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuousness of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean, and on the body of the beloved woman. Curves make up the entire Universe, the curved Universe of Einstein.
Niemeyer was educated at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and after graduating, he worked at his father's typography house and as a draftsman for local architectural firms. In the 1930s, he interned with Lúcio Costa, with the pair collaborating on the design for the Palácio Gustavo Capanema in Rio de Janeiro. Niemeyer's first major project was a series of buildings for Pampulha, a planned suburb north of Belo Horizonte at the invitation of its mayor, Juscelino Kubitschek. His work, especially on the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi, received critical acclaim and drew international attention.
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Niemeyer became one of Brazil's most prolific architects, working both domestically and overseas. This included the design of the Edifício Copan (a large residential building in São Paulo) and a collaboration with Le Corbusier (and others) on the United Nations Headquarters, which yielded invitations to teach at Yale University and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
In 1956, Niemeyer was invited by Brazil's new president, Juscelino Kubitschek, to design the civic buildings for Brazil's new capital, Brasília. His designs for the National Congress of Brazil, the Cathedral of Brasília, the Palácio da Alvorada, the Palácio do Planalto, and the Supreme Federal Court, all designed by 1960, were experimental and linked by common design elements. This work led to his appointment as inaugural head of architecture at the University of Brasília, as well as honorary membership of the American Institute of Architects.
Due to his largely left-wing ideology and involvement with the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), Niemeyer left the country after the 1964 military coup and opened an office in Paris. He returned to Brazil in 1985, and was awarded the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1988. A socialist and atheist from an early age, Niemeyer had spent time in both Cuba and the Soviet Union during his exile, and on his return served as the PCB's president from 1992 to 1996.
Niemeyer continued working at the end of the 20th and early 21st century, notably designing the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum (1996) and the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (2002). Over a career of 78 years he designed approximately 600 projects.William J. R. Curtis in "Oscar Niemeyer: architects and critics pay tribute", in The Guardian, December 7, 2012 Niemeyer died in Rio de Janeiro on 5 December 2012 at the age of 104.
Biography Early life and education
Niemeyer was born in the city of Rio de Janeiro on 15 December 1907. Niemeyer spoke about it: "my name ought to have been Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida de Niemeyer Soares, or simply Oscar de Almeida Soares, but the foreign surname prevailed and I am known simply as Oscar Niemeyer".Botey, Joseph M. (1996) Oscar Niemeyer. Gustavo Gili. He spent his youth as a typical young Carioca of the time: bohemian and relatively unconcerned with his future.Young, Ana. (December 11, 2014) Life Is More Important Than Architecture: A Celebration of Oscar Niemeyer . Soundsandcolours.com. Retrieved on June 30, 2015. In 1928, at age 21, Niemeyer left school (Santo Antonio Maria Zaccaria priory school) and married Annita Baldo, daughter of Italian immigrants from Padua. He pursued his passion at the National School of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro and graduated with a BA in architecture in 1934.
Early career After graduating, Niemeyer worked in his father's typography house. Even though he was not financially stable, he insisted on working in the architecture studio of Lúcio Costa, Gregori Warchavchik and Carlos Leão, even though they could not pay him. Niemeyer joined them as a draftsman, an art that he mastered (Corbusier himself would later compliment Niemeyer's 'beautiful perspectives'Deckker, Zilah Quezado (2001) Brazil Built: The Architecture of Modern Brazil. Taylor & Francis. ). The contact with Costa would be important to Niemeyer's maturation. After an initial flirtation with the Neocolonial movement, Costa believed that the advances of the International Style in Europe were the way forward for architecture. His writings on the insights that could unite Brazil's traditional colonial architecture (such as that in Olinda) with modernist principles would be the basis of the architecture that he and his contemporaries, such as Affonso Eduardo Reidy, would later realize.
In 1936, at the age of 29, Lúcio Costa was appointed by Education Minister Gustavo Capanema to design the new headquarters of the Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro. Costa himself, although open to change, was unsure of how to proceed. He assembled a group of young architects (Carlos Leão, Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Jorge Moreira and Ernani Vasconcellos) to design the building. He also insisted that Le Corbusier himself should be invited as a consultant. Though Niemeyer was not initially part of the team, Costa agreed to accept him after Niemeyer insisted. During the period of Le Corbusier's stay in Rio, he was appointed to help the master with his drafts, which allowed him a close contact with the Swiss. After his departure, Niemeyer's significant changes to Corbusier's scheme impressed Costa, who allowed him to progressively take charge of the project, of which he assumed leadership in 1939.
Brazilian modernism
The Ministry of Education had assumed the task of shaping the "novo homem, Brasileiro e moderno" (new man, Brazilian and modern). It was the first state-sponsored modernist skyscraper in the world, of a much larger scale than anything Le Corbusier had built until then. Completed in 1943, when he was 36 years old, the building that housed the regulator and manager of Brazilian culture and cultural heritage developed the elements of what was to become recognized as Brazilian modernism. It employed local materials and techniques, like the azulejos linked to the Portuguese tradition; the revolutionized Corbusian brises-soleil, made adjustable and related to the Moorish shading devices of colonial architecture; bold colors; the tropical gardens of Roberto Burle Marx; the Imperial Palm (Roystonea oleracea), known as the Brazilian order; further allusions to the icons of the Brazilian landscape; and specially commissioned works by Brazilian artists. This building is considered by some architects as one of the most influential of the 20th century. It was taken as a model on how to blend low- and high-rise structures (Lever House).
1939 New York World's Fair In 1939, at age 32, Niemeyer and Costa designed the Brazilian pavilion for the New York World's Fair (executed in collaboration with Paul Lester Wiener). Neighbouring the much larger French pavilion, the Brazilian structure contrasted with its heavy mass. Costa explained that the Brazilian Pavilion adopted a language of 'grace and elegance', lightness and spatial fluidity, with an open plan, curves and free walls, which he termed 'Ionic', contrasting it to the mainstream contemporary modernist architecture, which he termed 'Doric'. Impressed by its avant-garde design, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia awarded Niemeyer the keys to the city of New York.
In 1937, Niemeyer was invited by a relative to design a nursery for philanthropic institution which catered for young mothers, the Obra do Berço. It would become his first finalised work.Papadaki, Stamo (2012) The Work of Oscar Niemeyer. Literary Licensing, LLC. . p. 19 However, Niemeyer has said that his architecture really began in Pampulha, Minas Gerais, and as he explained in an interview, Pampulha was the starting point of this freer architecture full of curves which I still love even today. It was in fact, the beginning of Brasília ....
Pampulha Project
In 1940, at 33, Niemeyer met Juscelino Kubitschek, who was at the time the mayor of Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais. Kubitschek, together with the state's governor Benedito Valadares, wanted to develop a new suburb to the north of the city called Pampulha and commissioned Niemeyer to design a series of buildings which would become known as the "Pampulha architectural complex". The complex included a casino, a restaurant/dance hall, a yacht club, a golf club and a church, all of which would be distributed around a new artificial lake. A weekend retreat for the mayor was built near the lake.
The buildings were completed in 1943 and received international acclaim following the 1943 'Brazil Builds' exhibition, at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Most of the buildings show Niemeyer's particular approach to the Corbusian language. In the casino, with its relatively rigid main façade, Niemeyer departed from Corbusian principles and designed curved volumes outside the confinement of a rational grid.Comas, Carlos Eduardo (2005) "Niemeyer's Casino and the Misdeeds of Brazilian Architecture", pp. 169–188 in Critical Studies, Transculturation. Cities, Spaces and Architectures in Latin America. Felipe Hernández, Mark Millington and Iain Borden (eds.) He also expanded upon Corbusier's idea of a promenade architecturale with his designs for floating catwalk-like ramps which unfold open vistas to the occupants.
The small restaurant (Casa do Baile), which is perhaps the least bourgeois of the complex, is built on its own artificial island and comprises an approximately circular block from which a free-form marquee follows the contour of the island. Although free form had been used even in Corbusier's and Mies's architecture, its application on an outdoors marquee was Niemeyer's innovation. This application of free-form, together with the butterfly roof used at the Yacht Club and Kubitschek's house became extremely fashionable from then on.