18/09/2024
Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1907, Oscar Niemeyer grew up in the Laranjeiras neighborhood with his 5 brothers and sisters. He entered the School of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro in 1929 and graduated with a degree in architecture in 1934. According to him, “It was the time of Le Corbusier, at school we learned that facades were determined by the interior layout, which conditions all the other elements. At that time, the imagination of the architect should not go beyond the framework of the concepts and principles of construction technology.” A young graduate, Oscar Niemeyer was recruited as an intern in the architecture office of Lucio Costa, icon of early Brazilian modernism. In 1936, during the development of construction plans for the Capanema building, Lucio Costa's office worked for several months with Le Corbusier who supervised the beginnings of the project. Oscar Niemeyer will be responsible for the layout of the new Ministry of Education and Culture. At the beginning of the 1940s, under the aegis of the future president of the republic Juscelino Kubitshek, Oscar Niemeyer built the Pampulha complex in the state of Minas Gerais. The Chapel is the first building where we find the curves so characteristic of Niemeyer's work. In 1944, he was the star of the exhibition devoted to Brazilian architecture at the Museum of Modern Arts in New York and was then invited to participate in the design of the United Nations headquarters. In 1947, with the collaboration of interior designer Joaquim Tenreiro, Niemeyer built the modernist home of the Peixoto family in Cataguases, considered today to be the first modernist project integrating landscaping, architecture, design and art. It is therefore logical that President Kubitschek appointed him, along with Lucio Costa, responsible for the construction project of the new Brazilian capital Brasilia. Inaugurated in 1960, built in four years, the new federal capital remains Niemeyer's largest architectural project to this day. The military coup of 1964 forced Niemeyer, a famous member of the Communist Party, to go into exile in France. Supported by André Malraux, minister of culture at the time, Niemeyer designed and built large buildings such as the headquarters of the Communist Party, the headquarters of the newspaper L'Humanité, the Maison de la Culture du Havre, as well as some residences in the South of France.
