Architect Oscar Niemeyer shaped not only the Brazilian metropolis.

Publisher
ČTK
05.12.2022 07:45
Oscar Niemeyer

Brasília/Prague - Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who died on December 5, 2012, shortly before his 105th birthday, is primarily known for the construction of the country's new metropolis, Brasília. It was built according to his architectural designs in just four years at the end of the 1950s. His buildings can also be seen in France, Italy, Algeria, and Malaysia.


Born Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer in Rio de Janeiro, he graduated from the School of Fine Arts. He then joined the studio of Lucio Costa, the then-leading figure in Brazilian architecture, without claiming any salary, where he got involved in many prestigious projects - for example, the building of the Ministry of Education and Health in Rio and the pavilion for the World Fair in New York.

The initiator of the construction of the new Brazilian metropolis was President Juscelino Kubitschek, who had Czech ancestry. The layout of Brasília, shaped like an airplane, was devised by Lucio Costa. However, most of the city’s buildings, which grew up in the middle of an inhospitable wasteland at an altitude of a thousand meters, were designed by Niemeyer. One of the most famous is the nearly entirely glass cathedral, resembling a volcano, a flower, or a crown of thorns on Jesus's head. In 1987, Brasília was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

In addition to Brasília, Niemeyer's works (totaling around six hundred) can be found almost all around the world. When he had to emigrate from Brazil due to his leftist beliefs after the coup in 1964, he mainly lived in Paris, where he designed, for instance, the headquarters of the French Communist Party and an administrative building for Renault. Other of his buildings stand in Italy (the Mondadori publishing house), he designed a university in Algeria, a casino in Madeira, and the State Mosque in Penang, Malaysia.

In 1988, he received the Pritzker Prize, akin to the Nobel Prize in architecture. One of his last projects, a complex of administrative buildings in Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, was officially opened in the spring of 2010.
The English translation is powered by AI tool. Switch to Czech to view the original text source.
0 comments
add comment

Related articles