Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho (born December 15, 1907) is a Brazilian architect specializing in international modern architecture. He is a pioneer in exploring the formal possibilities of reinforced concrete solely for their aesthetic impact.
His buildings are often characterized by being spacious and exposed, mixing volumes and empty space to create unconventional patterns and often propped up by pilotis. Both lauded and criticized for being a “sculptor of monuments”, he has been praised for being a great artist and one of the greatest architects of his generationby his supporters.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Oscar Niemeyers’ quotes:
1. “Curves attracted me, especially free and sensual ones that evoked memories of old baroque churches. A curve is a beautiful line, logical and gracious, but only if it is well structured and drawn”.
2.” It is not the right angle that attracts me, nor the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. What attracts me is the free and sensual curve — the curve that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuous course of its rivers, in the body of the beloved woman”.
3.” When planning the government buildings for Brasilia I decided they should be characterized by their own structures within the prescribed shapes. In this way, the smaller details of rationalist architecture would vanish in the face of the overpowering shapes of the new edifices.
I tried to push the potential of concrete to its limits, especially at the load-bearing points which I wanted to be as delicate as possible so that it would seem as if the palaces barely touched the ground”.
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Oscar Niemeyer Architect
Casa do Baile dancehall and restaurant
Pampulha, Brazil 1940
Oscar Niemeyer about Casa Do Baile : “It all began with my first thoughts on Panpulha. I consciously ignored the highly praised right angle and the rational architecture of T-squares and triangles in order to wholeheartedly enter the world of curves and new shapes made possible by the introduction of concrete into the building process”.
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SANAA – kazuyo Sejima & associates
civic center of Onishi
Gumma, Japan 2003-05
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quotes from a conversation with SANAA:
is there any architects and/or designer from the
past you appreciate a lot?
s: a lot.
n: le corbusier, mies van der rohe, Oscar Niemeyer
these are an unforgetable ‘trio’ for me.
describe your style, like a good friend of yours
would describe it…
n: coherant, consistant, always doing the same thing.
one of our contants big concerns is how to create a
relation between the inside and outside, this is very
important for us to think about.
s: and also proportion. I mean not ‘good proportion’ but
the size and if it fits into that area.
when we use glass or a screen or a concrete wall,
this depends mostly on the area.
Oscar Niemeyer & SANAA from eliinbar’s sketchbook 2011
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Geronimo ….thanks for the opportunity to learn a fascinating example of “Conscious Inspiration”..….
Someone Has Built It Before 