OSCAR NIEMEYER

Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho

(December 15, 1907 December 5, 2012), 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 Braslia, a planned city that became Brazil's capital in 1960, as
well as his collaboration with other architects on the
United Nations Headquarters in New York City. His exploration
of the aesthetic possibilities of reinforced concrete was highly
influential in the late 20th and early 21st centuries
Oscar Niemeyer in the 1950s
I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, hard
and inflexible, created by man. I am attracted to free-flowing, sensual
curves. The curves that I find in the mountains of my country, in the
sinuousness of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean, and on the body of the
beloved woman. Curves make up the entire Universe, the curved Universe
of Einstein
Oscar Niemeyer

My architecture followed the old examples -
beauty prevailing over the limitations of the constructive logic. My work
proceeded, indifferent to the unavoidable criticism set forth by those who
take the trouble to examine the minimum details, so very true of what
mediocrity is capable of. It was enough to think of Le Corbusier saying to
me once while standing on the ramp of the Congress: `There is invention
here
-Oscar Niemeyer
There is a moment in a nation's history when one
individual captures the essence of that culture and gives it form. It is
sometimes in music, painting, sculpture, or literature. In Brazil, Oscar
Niemeyer has captured that essence with his architecture. His building
designs are the distillation of colors, light and sensual imagery of his native
land.
Although associated primarily with his major
masterpiece, Brasilia, the capital city of Brazil, he had achieved early
recognition from one of his mentors, Le Corbusier, going on to collaborate
with him on one of the most important symbolic structures in the world, the
United Nations Headquarters.
Recognized as one of the first to pioneer new
concepts in architecture in this hemisphere, his designs are artistic gesture
with underlying logic and substance. His pursuit of great architecture linked
to roots of his native land has resulted in new plastic forms and a lyricism
in buildings, not only in Brazil, but around the world. For his lifetime
achievements, the Pritzker Architecture Prize is bestowed.
-Pritzker prize jury citation
Oscar Niemeyer
Museum
(NovoMuseu),
Curitiba, Brazil
The Oscar Niemeyer Museum is located in the city of Curitiba, in the state of Paran, in
Brazil. It was inaugurated in 2002 with the name Novo Museu or New Museum. With the
conclusion of remodeling and the construction of a new annex, it was reinaugurated on July 8,
2003, with the current denomination to honor its famous architect who completed this project at
95 years of age. It is also known as Museu do Olho or Museum of the Eye, due to the design of
the building
The museum features many of Niemeyer's
signature elements: bold geometric forms, sculptural curved volumes
placed prominently to contrast with rectangular volumes, sinuous ramps
for pedestrians, large areas of white painted concrete, and areas with
vivid murals or paintings. A collaborator previously on Ibirapuera Park
with landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx, Niemeyer's namesake
museum is also within a garden designed by Burle Marx, and that within
144 thousand square meters of woodland.
Though rooted in modern architecture since his
involvement in the international style, Niemeyer's designs have much in
common with postmodern architecture as well and this is as
contemporary a building as the artwork it displays
The Palcio da Alvorada is the official
residence of the President of Brazil. It is located in the national capital of
Braslia, on a peninsula at the margins of Parano Lake. The building was
designed by Oscar Niemeyer and built between 1957 and 1958 in the
modernist style. It has been the residence of every Brazilian president
since
Juscelino
Kubitschek.
The building
is listed as a
National
Historic
Heritage Site
Palacio da Alvorada State Room
The Cathedral of Braslia, This concrete-framed hyperboloid
structure, appears with its glass roof to be reaching up, open, to heaven.
Most of the cathedral is below ground, with only the 70-meter (230 ft)
diameter 42-meter (138 ft) roof of the cathedral, the ovoid roof of the
baptistry, and the bell tower visible above ground. The shape of the roof is
based in a hyperboloid of revolution with asymmetric sections. The
hyperboloid structure consists of 16 identical concrete columns assembled
on site. These
columns,
having
hyperbolic
section and
weighing 90
tonnes (99 tons),
represent two
hands moving
upwards to
heaven.
Metropolitan Cathedral of Brasilia, Brasilia,
Brazil, 1970
In the square access to the cathedral, are four 3-
meter (9.8 ft) tall bronze sculptures representing the four Evangelists
created by sculptor Dante Croce in 1968. A 20-meter (66 ft) tall bell
tower containing four large bells donated by Spanish residents of Brazil
and cast in Miranda de Ebro also stands outside the cathedral, to the
right as visitors face the entrance. At the entrance of the cathedral is a
pillar with
passages from
the life of Mary,
mother of Jesus,
painted by Athos.

A 12-meter (39 ft)
wide, 40-centimeter
(16 in) deep reflecting
pool surrounds the
cathedral roof, helping
to cool the cathedral.
Visitors pass under this
pool when entering the
cathedral.
The Niteri Contemporary Art
Museum (Museu de Arte Contempornea de Niteri MAC) is
situated in the city of Niteri, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is one of the
citys main landmarks. It was completed in 1996.
Designed by Oscar Niemeyer with the
assistance of structural engineer Bruno Contarini, who had worked
with Niemeyer on earlier projects, the MAC-Niteri is 16 meters high;
its cupola has a diameter of 50 metres with three floors. The
museum projects itself over Boa Viagem (Bon Voyage, Good
Journey), the 817 square metres (8,790 sq ft) reflecting pool that
surrounds the cylindrical base like a flower, in the words of
Niemeyer.
Niteri Contemporary Art Museum, Niteroi,
Brazil, 1996
The Church of Saint Francis of Assisi (Igreja de
Sao Francisco de Assis, commonly known as the Igreja da Pampulha) is a
church in Pampulha region of Belo Horizonte, in the state of Minas Gerais,
southeastern Brazil. It was designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar
Niemeyer in the organic modern style. It is the first listed modern
architectural monument in Brazil and consists of four undulating concrete
parabolas with outdoor mosaics.
The church was controversial from the beginning.
The mayor of Belo Horizonte, Juscelino Kubitschek, was the patron of the
project. Niemeyer said that he was inspired by the French Poet Paul
Claudel's statement: "A church is God's hangar on earth," but Time
Magazine wrote that the Archbishop of Belo Horizonte, Antonio dos Santos
Cabral, saw it as "the devil's bomb shelter." Despite its completion in 1943
and Kubitschek's call for its consecration, it was not consecrated until 1959;
Archbishop Cabral opposed both its architectural and artistic forms,
particularly the mural of St. Francis behind the altar painted by Candido
Portinari. He proclaimed the church "unfit for religious purposes."
Latin America Memorial
The Latin America
Memorial is a cultural, political and
leisure complex, inaugurated in 1989,
in So Paulo, Brazil. The architectural
setting, designed by Oscar Niemeyer,
is a monument to the cultural, political,
social and economic integration of
Latin America, spanning an area of
84,482 square meters.

Its cultural project was
developed by Brazilian anthropologist
Darcy Ribeiro. It is a public foundation,
financially and administratively
autonomous, maintained by the state
government.
The Memorial promotes exhibitions, conferences,
debates, video sessions, theater, dance and music performances. It also
has a research center specializing in Latin American issues and keeps
an active bibliographic production. From 1989 to 2007, the Memorial
also served as a host to the Latin American Parliament.
The National Congress of Brazil is the
legislative body of Brazil's federal government. Unlike regional legislative
bodies Legislative Assemblies and City Councils -, the Congress is
bicameral, composed of the Federal Senate (the upper house) and the
Chamber of Deputies (the lower house).
On December 6, 2007, the Institute of Historic
and Artistic National Heritage decided to declare the building of the
National Congress a historical heritage of the Brazilian people. The
building is also
among the
UNESCO World
Heritage Sites,
as part of
Braslia's
original urban
buildings, since
1987.
National Congress
Building
Braslia, Federal
District, Brazil
Exterior, on a rainy day
Mondadori headquarters, designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer.
Arc of the Apotheosis, at the Sambodrome
ALDO ROSSI

Aldo Rossi (May 3, 1931 September 4, 1997)
was an Italian architect and designer who accomplished the unusual feat
of achieving international recognition in four distinct areas: theory,
drawing, architecture and product design
His earliest works of the 1960s were mostly
theoretical and displayed a simultaneous influence of 1920s Italian
modernism (see Giuseppe Terragni), classicist influences of Viennese
architect Adolf Loos, and the reflections of the painter Giorgio de Chirico.
A trip to the Soviet Union to study Stalinist architecture also left a marked
impression.
In his writings Rossi criticized the lack of
understanding of the city in current architectural practice. He argued that
a city must be studied and valued as something constructed over time;
of particular interest are urban artifacts that withstand the passage of
time. Rossi held that the city remembers its past (our "collective
memory"), and that we use that memory through monuments; that is,
monuments give structure to the city.
Stalinist architecture also referred to as
Stalinist Gothic, or Socialist Classicism, is a term given to
architecture of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph
Stalin, between 1933, when Boris Iofan's draft for Palace of the
Soviets was officially approved, and 1955, when Nikita Khrushchev
condemned "excesses" of the past decades and disbanded the
Soviet Academy of Architecture. Stalinist architecture is associated
with the socialist realism school of art and architecture.
Aldo Rossi won the prestigious Pritzker Prize for
architecture in 1990. Ada Louise Huxtable, architectural critic and Pritzker
juror, has described Rossi as "a poet who happens to be an architect."
Rationalism is a term referring to an architectural
current which mostly developed from Italy in the 1920s-1930s. Vitruvius
had already established in his work De Architectura that architecture is a
science that can be comprehended rationally.This formulation was taken
up and further developed in the architectural treatises of the Renaissance.
Progressive art theory of the 18th-century opposed the Baroque use of
illusionism with the classic beauty of truth and reason.



Neo-rationalism. In the late 1960s, a new
rationalist movement emerged in architecture, claiming inspiration from
both the Enlightenment and early-20th century rationalists. Like the earlier
rationalists, the movement, known as the Tendenza, was centered in Italy.
Practitioners include Carlo Aymonino (1926-2010), Aldo Rossi (193197),
and Giorgio Grassi. The Italian design magazine Casabella featured the
work of these architects and theorists.
Rossi's book L'architettura della citt,
published in 1966, and translated into English as The Architecture of
the City in 1982, explored several of the ideas that inform Neo-
rationalism. In seeking to develop an understanding of the city beyond
simple functionalism, Rossi revives the idea of typology, following from
Quatremre de Quincy, as a method for understanding buildings, as well
as the larger city. He also writes of the importance of monuments as
expressions of the collective memory of the city, and the idea of place
as an expression of both physical reality and history.
Pritzker prize jury citation

Architecture is a profession in which talent matures
slowly. It is a discipline which requires many years of thoughtful
observation, of testing principles, of sensing space, and experiencing the
many moods necessary for seasoning and nurturing. Wunderkind in
architecture are extremely rare.
The array of abilities that permit an architect to work
with a sure hand and achieve the intended result allows for no shortcuts.
An architect who would be the best he can be must serve a lifetime
apprenticeship, well beyond that required for official licensing. He must
know human behavior, understand structures and materials, and how to
shape forms and spaces to serve intended purposes in inspired and
original ways.
The Pritzker Architecture Prize Jury has found these
qualities and more in Aldo Rossi, and have selected him as the 1990
Laureate.
Known for many years as a theorist,
philosopher, artist and teacher, Rossi has spent time developing his
architectural voice, and pen. Words as well as drawings and buildings
have distinguished him as one of the great architects. As a master
draftsman, steeped in the tradition of Italian art and architecture, Rossi's
sketches and renderings of buildings have often achieved international
recognition long before being built.
His book, Architecture and the City, published in
1966, is a text of significance in the study of urban design and thinking.
Out of this theoretical base came designs that seem always to be a part
of the city fabric, rather than an intrusion.
Each of Rossi's designs, whether an office
complex, hotel, cemetery, a floating theatre, an exquisite coffee pot, or
even toys, captures the essence of purpose.
Rossi has been able to follow the lessons of
classical architecture without copying them; his buildings carry echoes
from the past in their use of forms that have a universal, haunting
quality. His work is at once bold and ordinary, original without being
novel, refreshingly simple in appearance but extremely complex in
content and meaning. In a period of diverse styles and influences, Aldo
Rossi has eschewed the fashionable and popular to create an
architecture singularly his own.
On a solid foundation of theory, he uses his
talents and ability to solve design problems in memorable and
imaginative ways. His influence is extensive and expands with every
new commission. With this honor, Aldo Rossi joins a dozen architects
already singled out for their contributions to humanity and the built
environment through the art of architecture.
-Pritzker prize jury citation
The grounds on which Aldos cemetery was
built was first the home of an ancient cemetery by architect Cesare
Costa carried out from 1858 to 1876, containing a vast amount of hand
carved and engraved statues and tombstones. The cemetery built by
Aldo is an analogical route through all of these images of the house of
the dead.
Aldo Rossi's original
competion winning
design.
Drawing for San
Cataldo Cemetery,
Modena, Italy, 1971
Aldo Rossi's competition winning design for the
San Cataldo Cemetery is a seminal work, coming as it did at a time
when architects were questioning the tenets of the Modern Movement.
The project is fascinating and baffling at the same time. One is drawn in
by its metaphysical and evocative forms, but also left a bit disturbed by its
fascistic overtones. Rossi has of course addressed these points with
penetrating insight and intelligence. For me, the references to all sorts of
other architectures, from factories and walled cities to, alas,
concentration camps and prison walls only serves to give the project
more poetic charge. I have recently made a 3D interpolation of the
project based on a mixture of his winning 1971 scheme and changes he
made up to 1976.

The project is Rossi's clearest interpretation of his
ideas regarding architecture and the city. One can say that the city itself
is the collective memory of its people, and like memory it is associated
with objects and places. The city is the locus of the collective memory.
The cemetery is the very embodiment of this notion of collective memory,
and Rossi here creates a haunting and enigmatic city of the dead.
The largest of
Rossi's projects in terms
of scale was the San
Cataldo Cemetery, in
Modena, Italy, which
began in 1971 but is yet
to be completed. Rossi
referred to it as a "city of
the dead".
Model of San Cataldo Cemetery, Modena, Italy,
1971
San Cataldo Cemetery,
Modena, Italy, 1984
The Teatro Carlo Felice is the principal opera
house of Genoa, Italy, used for performances of opera, ballet, orchestral
music, and recitals. It is located on the Piazza De Ferrari.
Rebuilding of the Carlo Felice Theatre, Genoa,
Italy, 1991
The hall was altered many times in the years
1859-1934, and remained remarkably unscathed by war until 9 February,
1941 when a shell fired by a British warship hit the roof, leaving a large
hole open to the sky and destroying the ceiling of the auditorium which
had been a unique example of 19th century rococo extravagance, its
main feature being a wide circle of angels, cherubs and other winged
creatures in brightly painted high relief.
Finally, an air raid in September 1944 caused
the destruction of the front of the theatre leaving virtually only the outside
walls and the corridors behind the tiers of boxes standing. What had
been the most richly beautiful of opera houses had become a skeleton of
bare walls and roofless porticos.
Reconstruction plans began immediately after
the war's close. The first design by Paolo Antonio Chessa (1951) was
rejected; the second by Carlo Scarpa was approved in 1977 but brought
to a halt by his untimely death. Aldo Rossi ultimately provided today's
design, in which portions of the original facade have been recreated but
the interior is entirely modern. The hall officially reopened in June 1991,
with a main hall holding up to 2,000 seats and a smaller auditorium
holding up to 200 seats.
The museum was founded in 1884 as the historical
and archaeological museum of the Dutch province of Limburg. The name
Bonnefanten Museum is derived from the French 'bons enfants' ('good
children'), the popular name of a former convent that housed the museum
from 1951 until 1978.

In 1995, the museum moved to its present location, a
former industrial site named 'Cramique'. The new building was designed by
the Italian architect Aldo Rossi. With its rocket-shaped cupola overlooking the
river Maas, it is one of Maastricht's most prominent modern buildings.[1]

Since 1999, the
museum has become exclusively an art
museum. The historical and
archaeological collections were housed
elsewhere. The museum is largely
funded by the province of Limburg.
Bonnefanten Museum
Bonnefanten Museum, Maastrict, Netherlands,
1995
Maastricht, the
Netherlands. View
of central staircase
in the
Bonnefantenmuseu
m designed by Aldo
Rossi.
It was built in the mid 90s, following the ideas of critical
reconstruction and is instantly recognisable by its multicoloured facades; it
seems at first glance to be a series of different buildings on the same
block, each a different (mostly primary) colour.

Despite the interesting layout of its internal courtyards,
and the inclusion of one pre-existing building, its basically one big
speculative development with the potential to remove internal partitions for
continuous office space.
Quartier
Schtzenstrasse,
Berlin, Germany, 1998
The splitting of the facades into apparently
separate buildings is therefore entirely false, and deliberately underlined
by the inclusion of a copy of the Renaissance Palazzo Farnese. This is
architectural humour, apparently.

Its admittedly a good antidote to some of the
frankly horrible featureless corporate blocks which dominate the area,
but the real problem, as ever in architecture, is in the detail.

Its just all too
plastic looking,
especially the renaissance
stone detailing, which,
although it is actual stone,
looks like plastic panels with
visible gaps between; the
stonework doesnt meet the
floor.
La Conica
Espresso
Coffee Maker,
1982
Stainless steel kettle Il Conico, 1986
Thank you