Oscar Niemeyer, a patriarch of modern architecture who shaped the look of contemporary Brazil and who let its architectural contribute worldwide, died late yesterday. He was 104.
“A revolutionary, the mentor of a new architecture, beautiful, logical, and, as he himself defined it, inventive.”, described the president Dilma Rousseff. His body will lie in state at the presidential palace.
Between his achievements,he won the 1988 Pritzker Architecture Prize, considered the “Nobel Prize of Architecture” for the Brasilia cathedral. Its “Crown of Thorns” cupola fills the church with light.
Brazilia Catedral, by Oscar Niemeyer
In his home city of Rio de Janeiro, Niemeyer’s many projects include the “Sambadrome” stadium for Carnival parades. Perched across the bay from Rio is the “flying saucer” he designed for the Niteroi Museum of Contemporary Art.
Sambodrome by Oscar Niemeyer
The collection of government buildings in Brasilia, though, remain his most monumental andenduring achievement. Built from scratch in a wild and nearly uninhabited part of Brazil’s remote central plateau in just four years, it opened in 1960.
While the airplane-shaped city was planned and laid out by Niemeyer’s friend Lucio Costa, Niemeyer designed nearly every important government building in the city.
