|
Oscar Niemeyer
Life Time
15 December 1907 - 5 December 2012
|
Oscar Niemeyer is an iconic figure for modern architecture, and especially Latin American architecture. He became one of Brazil’s greatest architects, a pioneer and experimenter in reinforced concrete architecture. The works of Niemeyer, striking the imagination with its scope, forms and dynamism, were called monumental by contemporaries, and the master himself became a classic during his lifetime, whose authority is indisputable even after his death. And the life of Oscar Niemeyer (December 15,
more
Oscar Niemeyer is an iconic figure for modern architecture, and especially Latin American architecture. He became one of Brazil’s greatest architects, a pioneer and experimenter in reinforced concrete architecture. The works of Niemeyer, striking the imagination with its scope, forms and dynamism, were called monumental by contemporaries, and the master himself became a classic during his lifetime, whose authority is indisputable even after his death.
And the life of Oscar Niemeyer (December 15, 1907 – December 5, 2012) was long – the architect lived 104 years, having died ten days before his hundred-fifth anniversary. A native of Rio de Janeiro from a wealthy family, he received a good education in a private college, where his interest in architecture first manifested itself. After graduating from the National School of Architecture in 1934, he joined the ranks of young architects who wanted to change the world.
Niemeyer’s desire for this was apparently stronger than that of many of his colleagues – he enthusiastically devoted himself to his profession, since the late 1930s regularly creating one building more original than another, and soon became famous. After the death of the master, about five hundred buildings were left on the planet, and one of his most famous creations is the capital city of Brasilia. Erected according to the master plan of his teacher, the outstanding architect Lucio Costa, this city, from a bird's eye view like a huge plane, became a kind of hallmark of Niemeyer - most of the local administrative buildings, as well as a masterpiece of modernism - the Cathedral - were designed by him.
Oscar Niemeyer worked literally until the last years of his long life. One of his last works is the Museum of Modern Art in Niteroi, a futuristic-looking building shaped like a UFO or a mysterious flower on the edge of a cliff, appeared in 1996. And in 2011, the doors of the Oscar Niemeyer International Cultural Center in Aviles, Spain, opened – a complex that Niemeyer designed as a tribute to him for awarding the Spanish Princess of Asturias Prize in 1989.