Oscar Niemeyer, Brazilian architect, Dies At 104
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com
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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.
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.
