Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who designed some of the 20th Century's most famous modernist buildings, has died just before his 105th birthday. Last year on December 15 he feted his 104th birthday in his Rio workshop overlooking Copacabana beach. He rose to international fame as the architect of the main government buildings in the futuristic Brazilian capital, Brasilia, inaugurated in 1960. During a long career in which he received top professional honors (in 1988, he was awarded the prestigious Pritzker Prize) Mr. Niemeyer also worked with Swiss-born modernist architect Le Corbusier on the UN building in New York and, as a lifelong communist sympathizer, designed the French party's head office in Paris while in exile from Brazil's military rulers. He continued to work on new projects until earlier this year. Last year the official opening of Niemeyer Center (Centro Niemeyer) was held in Aviles, (Asturias, Spain). Through his designs, Mr. Niemeyer protested the "orthodox functionalism" of modern building style that he thought left little room for sensuality. A bikini admirer, he often chose to link his work with Brazil's shapely beach women. "Form follows feminine," he said, twisting architect Louis Sullivan's famous remark about function. For inspiration, he drew on Brazil's colonial heritage with its ornate, baroque architecture, and applied new building materials and methods of construction. He favored reinforced concrete in an economy lacking in steel and created works of voluptuousness and space-age allure: smooth ramps leading to broad esplanades, domes shaped like soup bowls and entire buildings resembling flying saucers. His style was not to everyone's taste, and for a communist some people say his work was not very people-friendly - focusing more on the architecture's form than on its inhabitants or functionality. Niemeyer went on to create more than 600 buildings around the world. His legacy endures in museums, monuments, schools and churches in Brazil and beyond. Many of the designs were initially sketched on a table overlooking his beloved Rio de Janeiro and its famous Copacabana beach, replete with the women, waves and hills from which he drew such inspiration.

Brazil's star architect Oscar Niemeyer, who revolutionized modern architecture with his sensual curves inspired by "the body of the Brazilian woman," feted his 104th birthday on December 15 in his Rio workshop overlooking Copacabana beach, reported Yahoo News. During his seven-decade career, Niemeyer has designed more than 600 projects around the world, and is famous for some of Brazil's most distinctive buildings. Niemeyer, a disciple of Le Corbusier, designed his first building, the Ministry of Education and Public Health in Rio de Janeiro in 1943. His iconic buildings also include the National Congress of Brazil, the Cathedral of Brasilia, the Niteroi Contemporary Art museum, and he was a part of the panel that designed the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. He recently designed a new theater for Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine. Niemeyer, who won the 1988 Pritzker Prize -- "architecture's Nobel" -- chose his birthday to launch the 11th edition of "Nosso Caminho (Our Way)," the architecture magazine he publishes with his wife Vera Lucia. For a birthday present, he was given "Laura," a bronze sculpture with breasts exposed which was designed by famed Brazilian caricaturist Lan and made in bronze by artist Marcos Andre, according to the daily O Globo. Last August, Niemeyer told reporters that there were still a few things he would like to do, such as "a beautiful project for Copacabana." "I was once asked what I thought about life. My reply: As long as I have a woman next to me, come what may," he joked.

The official opening of Niemeyer Center (Centro Niemeyer) was held this week in Aviles, (Asturias, Spain). That ambitious cultural project was carried out by legendary and brilliant Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer (he was born in December 15, 1907). The first stone was laid 4 years ago, in April 2007. This unusual structure with spiral staircase consists of a three-storey dome-shaped museum, an auditorium for 1000 spectators, almost 4.000 square meter open-plan exhibition site and a viewing tower over the estuary and the city panoramic view. This cultural complex will also contain a multi-use building with rehearsal areas, conference and meeting halls, cinema house and an open square to hold entertainment and cultural activities. The Niemeyer Center is the only creature by Oscar Niemeyer in Spain. The first sketches, drawn with a thick black marker, later where transformed into an ambitious cultural master plan and in his own words, it's the one he most loves of all he has done outside of Brazil: "I am making such a unique work for my first time, and it represents one of the highest points of my ongoing effort to transform architecture into a piece of art". According to the author, the center opens the doors to culture in of all its directions and forms, traditions and styles; music, theater, cinema, indoor and outdoor exhibitions, conferences and educational programs. Oscar Niemeyer is one of the founders of the of modern Brazilian architecture school, a pioneer in exploring the formal possibilities of reinforced concrete solely for their aesthetic impact. Niemeyer architecture is distinguished by plasticity, expressiveness and warmth. As he said: "It is not the right angle that attracts me, nor the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. What attracts me is the free and sensual curve - the curve that I find in the mountains of my country, sinuous course of its rivers, in the body of the beloved woman."