Oscar Niemeyer
Oscar Niemeyer
Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho, known as Oscar Niemeyer, was a Brazilian architect who is considered to be one of the key figures in the development of modern architecture. Niemeyer was best known for his design of civic buildings for Brasília, a planned city that became Brazil's capital in 1960, as well as his collaboration with other architects on the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York City. His exploration of the aesthetic possibilities of reinforced concrete...
NationalityBrazilian
ProfessionArchitect
Date of Birth15 December 1907
CityRio de Janeiro, Brazil
CountryBrazil
Of course, I have given my engineers some headaches over the years, but they go with me. I have always wanted my buildings to be as light as possible, to touch the ground gently, to swoop and soar, and to surprise.
I had some good opportunities. I was lucky to have had the chance to do things differently. Architecture is about surprise.
When I was very little my mother said I used to draw in the air with my fingers. I needed a pencil. Once I could hold one, I have drawn every day since.
Surprise is key in all art.
I enter my studio at 9 a.m. I have lunch here, I return right away to my work and I go out to dinner at 8 p.m. My daily tasks vary very much.
Turning 102 is crap, and there is nothing to commemorate.
It is not with architecture that one can disseminate any political ideology.
Architecture is my work, and Ive spent my whole life at a drawing board, but life is more important than architecture. What matters is to improve human beings.
The challenge of a cathedral is very good for architectural inventiveness.
The artistic capability of reinforced concrete is so fantastic - that is the way to go.
I was attracted by the curve — the liberated, sensual curve suggested by the possibilities of new technology yet so often recalled in venerable old baroque churches.
Camus says in 'The Stranger' that reason is the enemy of imagination. Sometimes you have to put reason aside and make something beautiful.
Right angles don't attract me. Nor straight, hard and inflexible lines created by man.
It was the drawing that led me to architecture, the search for light and astonishing forms.