Oscar Niemeyer died in Rio de Janeiro on December 5th, just ten days shy of his 105th birthday. One of the last living links to the founding generation of Modernist architects, Niemeyer indelibly shaped Brazil’s architectural identity, immortalized in the monumental government buildings he created for the new capital, Brasília. He became a household name there, if not a national hero. Fittingly, Niemeyer’s casket lay in state at the presidential palace, which he designed, before a funeral worthy of a political leader.
As a young draftsman Niemeyer met Le Corbusier who came to Rio in the 1930s to work with Lucio Costa and others on the seminal Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro. Later Niemeyer was one of the team, which included Le Corbusier, that designed the United Nations headquarters (1950). Niemeyer reinvigorated Modernism by taking the chill off its rigid, dogmatic Bauhaus approach, imbuing its rationality with sensuality, optimism, and a joie de vivre that struck a chord with the Latin psyche. His buildings fully opened themselves to the light, warmth, and lushness of Brazil. To experience the exquisite brises-soleil of the Ministry of Education and Health (completed in 1943), the winding ribbon windows of the architect’s home in the forested hills above Rio (1953), and the dance of pilotis and balustrades in his Bienal de São Paulo pavilion (1951), was to understand how Niemeyer brought to life the elements of Le Corbusier’s “Five Points” in the tropics. His work was not just photogenic; it was transporting.
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