Oscar Niemeyer dead at 104, life and architecture

Oscar Niemeyer, one of the greatest exponents of twentieth century architecture, about to turn 105 years (born on December 15, 1907) died this evening at dawn (21.55 local time / h 01.55 in Europe).

Oscar Niemeyer had been a month in a hospital in Rio de Janeiro Samaritan. He had been three weeks in May with pneumonia and in October,when the new traveled all ways,entered again by dehydration problems. His body was like a worn machine and in November, he went back into the hospital for a kidney problem and a respiratory infection.

Brasilia under construction. Photography © Marcel Gautherot.

"Life always seemed to me more important than architecture."
Oscar Niemeyer

I never knew Oscar Niemeyer personally, I haven´t got pictures with him, I hadn´t either the privilege of visiting their works in Brazil, and I don´t smoke like him, but I could say that I share much of their wishes, including the beauty of women, and Teresa is also agree with me. It is one of those personalities who honestly and sincerely admire so conveys, his desire to catch life, to mix with the architecture, to enjoy life to its last drop. His commitment to his ideas, be consistent with them and make good architecture. Fernandez Galiano commented in a conference that he had lived so long that he had so much time to make that his trajectory and brilliant architectural career the same stand in the question. I honestly think not.

During all my life I've heard as all kinds of architects as looked at him "absently", as by becoming the casual, among those who looked directly, as reference, Rem Koolhaas, openly. To my friends and students that always i talked about the vitality conveyed when passed the hundred. Seeing someone so vital and so deeply believing in architecture towards recuperarses you so much pessimism.

He lived intensely and brilliantly developing a large number of works world, below some of his most significant works. The city of Rio de Janeiro is shocked by the death of one of its leading figures, has declared three days of official mourning.

Interview from March 2007. from Andy Russell / Different Films

Brasilia. Untitled 1, Nicolau Drey, 1958-1960, 2010 by Murillo Meirelles at 1500 Gallery.

"Niemeyer White" a series of photographs about Oscar Niemeyer Center in Aviles, Asturias, Spain. Photography © David Airob. Courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2012.

Click above to see larger image - Centro Niemeyer. José Luis Cuesta (CORDON PRESS).

Brasilia. Untitled 8, Jader Neves, 1958-1960, 2010 por Murillo Meirelles en 1500 Gallery.

Click above to see larger image - Pampunha Art Museum, 1940. Belo Horizonte. Photography Arquivo Público Mineiro.

Click above to see larger image - Planalto Palace , 1956. Brasilia. Photography Arquivo Público Mineiro.

Clickea encima para ver la imagen más grande - Brasilia en construcción. Fotografía © Marcel Gautherot.

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Oscar NIEMEYER

Oscar Niemeyer was born in 1907 in the hillside district of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts there. Niemeyer’s architecture, conceived as lyrical sculpture, expands on the principles and innovations of Le Corbusier to become a kind of free-form sculpture.

In 1938-39 he designed the Brazilian Pavilion for the New York World’s Fair in collaboration with Lucio Costa. His celebrated career began to blossom with his involvement with the Ministry of Education and Health (1945) in Rio de Janeiro. Niemeyer’s mentor, Lucio Costa, architect, urban planner, and renowned pioneer of Modern architecture in Brazil, led a group of young architects who collaborated with Le Corbusier to design the building which became a landmark of modern Brazilian architecture. It was while Niemeyer was working on this project that he met the mayor of Brazil's wealthiest state, Juscelino Kubitschek, who would later become President of Brazil. As President, he appointed Niemeyer in 1956 to be the chief architect of Brasilia, the new capital of Brazil, his designs complementing Lucio Costa’s overall plans. The designs for many buildings in Brasilia would occupy much of his time for many years.

"As an architect," he states, "my concern in Brasilia was to find a structural solution that would characterize the city's architecture. So I did my very best in the structures, trying to make them different with their columns narrow, so narrow that the palaces would seem to barely touch the ground. And I set them apart from the facades, creating an empty space through which, as I bent over my work table, I could see myself walking, imagining their forms and the different resulting points of view they would provoke.

Internationally, he collaborated with Le Corbusier again on the design for the United Nations Headquarters (1947-53) in New York, contributing significantly to the siting and final design of the buildings. His own residence (1953) in Rio de Janeiro has become a landmark. In the 1950s, he designed an Aeronautical Research Center near Sao Paulo. In Europe, he undertook an office building for Renault and the Communist Party Headquarters (1965) both in Paris, a cultural centre for Le Havre (1972), and in Italy, the Mondadori Editorial Office (1968) in Milan and the FATA Office Building (1979) in Turin. In Algiers, he designed the Zoological Gardens, the University of Constantine, and the Foreign Office.