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Oscar Niemeyer: Architectural Legacy

Ibirapuera Auditorium, So Paulo


Photo by Leonardo Finotti
there were such a thing as a
body language of nations, deciphering
the way countries present themselves,
then the Brazil projected by the late,
prolic Rio de Janeiro architect Oscar
Niemeyer would make a fascinating
subject for study.
Known abroad for its raw beauty
and lush nature, at home Brazil has
constructed a public face for its gov-
ernmental institutions that chimes
perfectly with the slogan emblazoned
on its ag: Order and Progress (Ordem
e Progresso). Credit for the vast major-
ity of them lies with Niemeyer; and yet
his colossal, monumental, forward-
facing, even utopian buildings, look
as astonishingly, exuberantly alien in
Brazil as they would almost anywhere
else on Earth.
The architect, who died on 5
December 2012, 10 days from what
would have been his 105th birthday,
was a pivotal gure in the construction
of mid 20th century Brazil a nation
in the midst of reinvention, from agri-
cultural giant to, it hoped, a modern,
industrial powerhouse.
One of a generation of Brazilian
architects galvanised by the modernist
styles coming out of Europe, Niemeyer
graduated and set to work in 1934, seiz-
ing on new materials, and in particular
reinforced concrete, and pushing its
plasticity into unheard of shapes and
volumes. He was evangelical about concrete until his dying day,
extolling its endless generosity as a material in a long 2006 inter-
view with the Brazilian magazine Caros Amigos. The vocabulary
of concrete is so much richer [than traditional materials] it has
no end, he said. Comparing the 30m- to 40m-wide cupolas of
the Renaissance period to the almost 80m diameter he achieved
in Braslia (Brazils capital), in the twin domes of the Senate and
Congress (the latter as an upturned bowl), he said: We are living
in a very special moment for architects, because concrete allows
them to do things they never had the opportunity to do before.
On Niemeyers drawing board, a tendency towards brutal-
ism that reinforced concrete has often inspired is occasionally
present, but more often than not it takes ight instead into sym-
phonies of curves, arches and parabolas, slender piloti columns,
and purpose-built, wide-open spaces. In some cases the eye-
shaped Oscar Niemeyer museum in Curitiba, the Congress and
Senate complex the result is buildings that barely even look like
buildings.
You can like or dislike the palaces, Niemeyer said refer-
ring to the Braslia works that also include the elegant Palcio da
Alvorada (the Presidents ofcial residence), and the crownlike,
euphoric upward thrust of the Metropolitan cathedral but you
cant say its something youve ever seen before. For those of us in
architecture, thats the ultimate result.
Outside Braslia in one of Niemeyers most celebrated
works as well as a personal favourite the retro-futuristic, y-
ing-saucer contours of the MAC art museum (1996) at Niteroi
are framed exquisitely, in the unlikeliest of harmonies, against
the black-mountain silhouette of Rio de Janeiro, seen across
IF
Historically a modernist
giant that casted shadows
for years, in some ways
Oscar Niemeyer has cast
a lot of other great architects
into the shade. Our So Paulo
based writer takes a look
at his architectural legacy.
by Claire Rigby
We are living in a very special moment for architects,
because concrete allows them to do things they never had
the opportunity to do before
the civilian f.s 65 f.s 64 the civilian
life is more important than architecture: what is important is
improving the state of the human being
Guanabara Bay. In So Paulo, the generous sweep of Ibirapuera
Parks Marquise (1954), an immense concrete shade, runs for
1700m, linking the eclectic set of buildings that Niemeyer was
commissioned to create inside the park which also includes the
monumental Bienal building and the domed Oca. The Marquise,
recently renovated, forms an all-weather, all-purpose leisure
space in which people stroll from museum to museum; skate-
boarding teenagers clack and roll on their boards; and small
children toddle about as So Paulos afternoon summer rain hurls
down on either side.
That public access and openness to all-comers, no matter how
highbrow the museum or important the ministry concerned, is one
of the hallmarks of the modern style, and its an aspect Niemeyer
loved. We work for the rich or for government, he told Caros
Amigos, but the poor are watching from afar, nding it beautiful
when it is beautiful, and being amused when it is different. It has to
be different it has to create excitement, and surprise.
A case in point, on the edge of the Marquise, is the exuber-
ant perfection of the Auditrio Ibirapuera concert hall: a dazzling
white wedge of a building, crowned by a scarlet lick of concrete
over the entrance, like a amenco dancers nal, exuberant our-
ish. The building was rst drafted in the 1950s, but it wasnt
built until years later, and inaugurated in 2005. Reinforced con-
crete made this, and many dozens of other projects, possible for
Niemeyer, in a career that spanned almost 80 years from 1934 until
shortly before his death in 2012. Years which included impossible
not to have, in a professional trajectory with the length, ambition
and audacity of Niemeyers both highs and lows.
Mercado das Flores, Braslia
Photo by Leonardo Finotti
the civilian f.s 67
There were triumphs like Rios Ministry of Education (1936),
on which Niemeyer worked as part of a team that also included
Le Corbusier; and Braslia, for which Niemeyer was tasked
with creating the public buildings, while his teacher and friend
Lcio Costa drew up the city master plan. There was the United
Nations building in New York (1947) also the product of an
all-star team of architects; and Niemeyers much-loved Copan
building (1951) in downtown So Paulo a curving architectural
leviathan that houses 5,000 people in apartments ranging from
27m
2
to 270m
2
, with shops, cafes, restaurants and services on the
ground oor. There was also the superb headquarters Niemeyer
built in Italy to house Mondadori publishers (1968), just outside
Milan, reworking some of the nest aspects of Braslias Foreign
Ministry and adding irregularly spaced pilotis; and the astonish-
ing grace of the Palcio Tiradentes building in Belo Horizonte
(2010) its immense mass suspended under steel cables as part of
the complex for the state government of Minas Gerais.
And there were the now relatively little-known mists, like
the absent-minded, ugly bulk of So Paulos Edifcio e Galeria
Califrnia, of which Max Bill wrote scathingly, in Architectural
Review in 1954: The walls and pilotis interweave pointlessly,
interrupting and destroying the form: its a gigantic disorder of
the likes Ive never seen. Come across the building unawares on
a Saturday afternoon stroll through So Paulo, and the sensation,
even for someone who relishes the citys architectural thrills and
spills, is memorable. Like a good Stalinist he was a lifelong com-
munist, and president of the Brazilian Communist Party from
1992-96 Niemeyer took the opportunity of Max Bills attack to
make a self-critique, published in 1958, in which he admitted, at
times, having, neglected certain problems, and adopted an exces-
sive tendency towards originality, going on to implicate those
who had commissioned him and hoping to win fame for their
daring buildings.
But Niemeyer, a lifelong friend of Fidel Castro, a self-imposed
exile from Brazils 1964-85 military dictatorship, and the pro
f.s 68 the civilian
Ibirapuera Complex, So Paulo
Photo by Leonardo Finotti
bono creator of the French Communist
Party headquarters (1965), had never
intended to change the world through
architecture. Architecture is my work
and I have spent my entire life behind
the drawing board, he said in 2006,
but life is more important than archi-
tecture: what is important is improving
the state of the human being.
A series of discussions on
Niemeyers legacy, held at So Paulos
Ita Cultural in December 2013,
brought together some of the key g-
ures in modern Brazilian architecture
Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Mrcio
Kogan, Ruy Ohtake and is set to be
followed up in June 2014 with a major
Niemeyer exhibition at the same venue,
just as the World Cup kicks off across
the country. Ita Cultural, one of
Brazils most inuential cultural pivots,
is located squarely on Avenida Paulista,
which saw some of the worst pro-
tests during June 2013. Whatever June
2014 may bring, as the world watches
Brazil from up close, and as the coun-
trys social movements gear up for yet
more protests, Niemeyer would surely
have been delighted to nd himself still
right at the heart of it.
Casa das Canoas, Rio de Janeiro
Photo by Leonardo Finotti the civilian f.s 71

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