Six Decades of Sensuality
THE ARCHITECTURE OF OSCAR NIEMEYER
Sexy, daring, and irreverent—these words are often used to describe the work of Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who has been busy creating innovative designs in steel, exposed concrete, and glass for the past 60 years. A dash of modernist ideals combined with a healthy dose of sensuous curves inspired by the female denizens of his native country, Niemeyer’s designs simultaneously spark controversy and delight. The exhibit, Brazil Builds, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1943, which featured his unorthodox architectural plans for overhauling Brazil’s capital city, Brasilia, brought Niemeyer international acclaim. Many of his projects, including the French Communist Party Headquarters in Paris and the 39-story United Nations Secretariat in New York City, have become iconic monuments to his style. Yet the Catholic Church refused to consecrate the Pampulha Church of São Francisco de Assis (1942), in the northern suburbs of Brasilia, until nearly a decade after it was built because of its unconventional design.
In Brasilia, Niemeyer’s domed and saucer-shaped structures, snaking walkways and ramps, and seemingly weightless monumental buildings seem to come from the future, but his philosophy is firmly rooted in the present, in the awareness of creating architectural spaces that attempt “to make this unjust world a better place in which to live.”6 At 101, age hadn’t even slowed this inventive architect: Niemeyer continues to draft projects for cultural centers, museums, and public spaces throughout the world, always with his distinctive artistic vision, one that embraces function, beauty, and a certain shock value. —SBR
Cathedral of Brasilia, Brazil, design by architect Oscar Niemeyer.