Oscar Niemeyer

Niemeyer was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1907. He married Annita Baldo in 1928; they remained married until her death in 2004.¹ He began designing in 1935 while working in Lúcio Costa’s office, according to an academic essay on his work.⁶ Costa brought Niemeyer onto the team for a new Ministry of Education building in Rio de Janeiro; Niemeyer worked on the project with Costa and Le Corbusier in 1936.^3,4,5 Architectural historian William J. R. Curtis notes that the building was among the first skyscrapers fitted with sun-shading louvers.⁴

Curtis identifies the Pampulha Casino (1943) and the House in Canoas (1952) as works that combine modern structural principles with fluid spaces and sensitivity to nature.⁴ The BBC described Niemeyer as rejecting the cube forms favored by earlier modernists in favor of monumental, curving structures made of concrete and glass.¹ Niemeyer said he sought architecture with fewer supports, greater openness, and more generous space.⁷

An academic essay describes a marked change in his architecture around 1955; this is an interpretation of his work rather than a dated project event.⁶ Max Bill criticized Niemeyer’s free forms as decorative. Niemeyer responded that solutions that work at a large scale can become poor when reduced to miniature scale.⁶

In 1956, Costa won the competition for Brasília’s master plan, and Niemeyer was commissioned to design the capital’s principal public buildings.^2,3,5 Brasília was inaugurated in 1960. As the transfer of power from Rio approached, concern about the project’s cost and incomplete state spread in Brazil, according to an account of the period.^1,2,3 Curtis cites the Palácio da Alvorada, the presidential palace, as an example of Niemeyer’s work on monumental buildings representing the state.⁴ According to The Independent, Niemeyer's Brasília cathedral was completed in 1970.^4,7

Niemeyer joined the Brazilian Communist Party in 1945 and served as its president from 1992 to 1996.^3,7 His Museum of Contemporary Art in Niterói opened in 1996.⁵ Norman Foster recalled studying Niemeyer’s work closely as a student in the early 1960s.⁴ A report said Niemeyer continued working at his Rio studio every weekday at age 102.⁷

Niemeyer died aged 104. Rio de Janeiro mayor Eduardo Paes declared three days of mourning in the city after his death.^1,2,3 President Dilma Rousseff said that Brazil had lost one of its geniuses on the day he died.²