Oscar Niemeyer projects. Biography of Oscar Niemeyer. International recognition

Oscar Niemeyer is a temperamental polemicist and architect. All his life he fought for his architectural and social beliefs. Oscar believed that the main thing in architecture is beauty, not functionality. Despite a huge amount of criticism, the architect designed more than 600 buildings during his 105-year life. Including building the new capital of Brazil.

Portrait of Oscar Niemeyer

5 principles of architecture by Oscar Niemeyer:

Niemeyer quickly learned to design in accordance with Le Corbusier's 5 rules: the house stands on pillars, the roof is used as a garden terrace, each floor has its own layout, windows are installed from floor to ceiling along the entire length of the wall, the facade of the house moves forward.

The main difference in the architects' approaches is that Corbusier valued functionality more than form. Niemeyer is the opposite. Beauty was more important to him than anything else. Based on Corbusier's rules, Niemeyer developed his own principles.

Beauty is the main function of architecture

Niemeyer believed in the socially healing powers of beauty. That is why many of the architect’s buildings resemble sculptures. Oscar tried to convey this idea to a new generation of architects. At his speeches, he promoted the rejection of the dogmas of functionalism.

Italian publishing house Mondadori. Milan, 1975

“I have always wanted my buildings to be as light as possible. So that they touch the ground softly, take off, soar and surprise.”

Architecture must fit into the landscape

Niemeyer has repeatedly mentioned that the nature of Brazil greatly influenced his projects. The winding rivers and curves of the mountains are reflected in his buildings. Based on the idea of the healing power of beauty, Oscar argued that the harmony of architecture and the natural landscape is one of the conditions for human health.

Plastic forms breathe life into buildings

Oscar noted that almost everything created by man has straight, rigid and inflexible lines and angles. He is also a supporter of freely flowing, sensual, curved lines, the creator of which is nature. And she better than man knows how to be more beautiful and better.

Oscar Niemeyer International Cultural Center. Aviles, 2011

Reinforced concrete - the main assistant to the architect

Oscar had special feelings for this material. He called reinforced concrete his main assistant and admitted that there is no greater pleasure for an architect than to invent new forms from monolithic reinforced concrete. This is the only material that allows you to create not just a building, but a real architectural spectacle.

Museum contemporary art. Rio de Janeiro, 1996

If you want to learn more about the brilliant architects who changed the face of cities, read our freely available articles.

Oscar Niemeyer is one of the fathers of modern Latin American architecture, a temperamental polemicist, architectural theorist and convinced communist. All his life he fought for his architectural and social beliefs. Oscar believed that the main thing in architecture is beauty, not functionality. Despite a huge amount of criticism, the architect designed more than 600 buildings during his 105-year life. Including building the new capital of Brazil.

In this article you will learn about:

the life of Oscar Niemeyer;
4 main principles of architecture;
the most significant buildings in the history of Latin American modernism;
interesting facts from the life and work of the architect.

Oscar Niemeyer: curves of life

Portrait of Oscar Niemeyer

1907 - 1930 Early years

Oscar Niemeyer was born on December 15, 1907 in Rio de Janeiro on a street named after his grandfather, the Minister of the Supreme Court of Brazil. Oscar's childhood and youth were carefree: most he spent time on football and dancing. A little less - for reading and attending a privileged school, which he never graduated from.

According to the recollections of his parents, in the remaining free time and between classes, Oscar constantly drew something, and if there was no pencil at hand, he moved his finger through the air. When the time came to decide on higher education, the family council paid attention to this particular hobby. Soon Oscar was assigned to the best architectural school in Brazil.

1930 - 1940 Beginning of career

At the architecture school, Niemeyer became friends with the director, the young architect and innovator Lucio Costa. Lucio tried to redo the educational process, for which he was fired a year later. He introduced students to new, not yet fully tested building materials. He taught design principles that were far from the traditional principles of Brazilian architecture.

After his dismissal, Lucio founded a design workshop and called Niemeyer as his assistant. The very first project brought fame to the workshop. The architects took on the construction of the Ministry of Health, and invited Le Corbusier himself for consultation. Oscar worked as Corbusier's assistant for two years and until the end of his days he called him his main inspiration and teacher.

After Le finished consulting on the project and left Brazil, Niemeyer, despite his endless admiration for the great architect, changed the design, added a roof garden and chose materials to suit his tastes. Lucio was amazed by the bold and unconventional idea and made Oscar the lead developer of the project.

1940 - 1985 International recognition

After the construction of the ministry was completed, orders poured into Niemeyer. In 1940, the architect built the Brazil Pavilion at the New York World's Fair. The building stood out for its plastic and expressive forms, which caused a stir among architects.

Building of the Ministry of Education and Health, 1936

“I have always wanted my buildings to be as light as possible. So that they softly touch the ground, take off, soar and surprise"

In 1947, Niemeyer was included in the team of architects to design the UN headquarters in New York. The team was led by Le Corbusier. Despite the fact that Oscar still admired Corbusier, was inspired by his works and used his principles, the joint collaboration again did not work out. Separately from the main project, Niemeyer developed his own building plan, which the customers ultimately accepted. Corbusier went back to France and demanded that his name be removed from all documents relating to the UN building.

In 1950, Oscar's close friend Juscelino Kubitschek became President of Brazil and decided to build a new capital city. He turned to Niemeyer to design the main buildings.

The city plan of Brasilia is designed in the shape of an eagle taking off

After talking with Juscelino, the architect immediately canceled all orders and began making the first sketches on a nearby napkin. The project for the new capital became Oscar's largest work, which made him famous throughout the world.

Today, the capital has a high status as a World Heritage Site and is protected by UNESCO.

“The construction of Brasília was a wonderful time. I, the engineers, the workers, and even Zhuselina lived in the same houses, went to the same bars and dances. It seemed as if a new society was being born, and all traditional barriers were left behind."

1955 - 1985 emigration

4 years after the start of construction of the new capital in Brazil, the government changed. The time has come for military dictatorship. Oscar was threatened with arrest for promoting communist ideology. To avoid going to prison, the architect emigrated to France, where he had long been known.

During his 21-year exile, Oscar Niemeyer built buildings throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. At the request of the Algerian government, Oscar advised local urban planners, designed major university complexes and founded an architecture school. For the school, Niemeyer developed a curriculum based on new teaching principles.

Despite his heavy workload, Oscar did not forget about his homeland. He developed an airport project for the new capital for free. The architectural community called the project “the best gate in Brazil.” Despite this approval, the airport remained on paper. The military authorities banned the construction of a building designed by a person with communist beliefs.

In addition to construction, Niemeyer was interested in designing furniture for several years. Together with his daughter, he designed soft leather chairs and sofas with spring legs. The furniture is now in museums in Brazil.

“Architecture will always express the technical and social progress of a country. We must participate in the political struggle if we want to give it human content."

1985 - 2012 Recent years

Immediately after the end of the military dictatorship, Oscar Niemeyer returned to his homeland. The first thing he did was lead the Brazilian Communist Party and open his own workshop.

During the entire existence of the workshop, Oscar was its only employee. After Niemeyer completed the drawings, he handed them over to his daughter's architectural office. There they kept all the documentation, made final calculations and controlled the construction process. This is how the 80-year-old architect saved time, did only what was interesting, and by the end of his life he designed more than 600 buildings.

Oscar Niemeyer was 10 days short of his 106th birthday. The architect devoted his entire life to work. On his desk there is still an unfinished project for the restaurant building, which Oscar worked on even on the last day of his life.

The agency that helped Niemeyer implement the projects reports that they still have about a dozen completed, but not yet implemented, projects by the architect.

Principles of Architecture by Oscar Niemeyer

Beauty is the main function of architecture

Architecture must fit into the landscape

At the same time, critics note the identity design solutions Niemeyer in different countries with different topography and climatic conditions.

Plastic forms breathe life into buildings

Oscar noted that almost everything created by man has straight, rigid and inflexible lines and angles. He is also a supporter of freely flowing, sensual, curved lines, the creator of which is nature. And she knows better than a person how to be more beautiful and better.

Reinforced concrete - the main assistant to the architect

Five of Niemeyer's most significant buildings

Oscar often recalled that the most strained relationships in his life were with engineers. Those who said “it can’t be built” were fired. Oscar joked that people who agreed to a joint architectural adventure, in addition to enormous stress and headaches, received the most important and valuable experience in their careers.

Niemeyer family home. Rio de Janeiro, 1951

No reference book on architecture is complete without photographs and drawings of this building. Historians and critics describe the Canoas house as the most striking example of the fusion of a building with nature. Now the house houses a museum in memory of Oscar Niemeyer.

Not bound by customer requirements, Niemeyer built an example of an ideal human home. The house is located on a forest cliff. One of its walls is a huge stone that broke off from a rock nearby. The opposite glass wall was erected over a fragment of this stone. You will not find clear lines and corners in the house. The building, like the forest around it, seems to be in slight movement.

Cathedral. Brasilia, 1970

18 years after the construction of the cathedral, Niemeyer received the Pritzker Prize (architectural Oscar) for the best building in the modernist style.

The main part of the building is underground. From the outside we see only the dome of the structure. To get to the cathedral, you need to go through a long, dark corridor underground, which personifies fear and bitterness from one’s own sins. From the hallway, visitors enter into a light, bright space. Light through multi-colored stained glass windows fills the entire room, creating an atmosphere of magic.

Despite everyone's admiration for the building, Catholic Church for a long time refused to cover the cathedral because of Niemeyer’s atheistic views.

Italian publishing house Mondadori. Milan, 1975

According to Niemeyer, the publishing house is a favorite project that he built in Europe. The construction divided the international community of architects into two camps. Some criticized the building for its extreme non-functionality, others admired its external beauty. Interestingly, the architect received a huge positive response from photographers. They said that the building was an ideal training ground for practicing and honing photography skills. Here you can work with volumes, shadows, reflection, geometry and rhythm.

Modern Art Museum. Rio de Janeiro, 1996

Niemeyer called the museum the most grandiose building in his career. Everything is truly amazing. The unusual building immediately became the second most important landmark of the city after the sculpture of Christ. The museum halls are located around the perimeter of the building in a spiral. This design allows you to see all the exhibitions and not miss anything. The observation deck offers panoramic views of the city and the ocean.

Niemeyer explained the choice of such an unusual form of the building poetically: “A flying saucer that once flew over the city was so delighted with the beauty of these places that it landed and decided to stay here forever, laying the foundation for the Museum.”

Oscar Niemeyer International Cultural Center. Aviles, 2011

Aviles is a small industrial Spanish city, piled with smoking chimneys of factories. The Spanish government decided to transform the city and build a huge museum and exhibition complex in it. In order for the center to attract people with its mere appearance, Niemeyer was called in as the architect and ideological inspirer.

In appearance, the complex resembles a children's playground: each of the five buildings has an unusual shape and brightly colored facades. The center hosts scientific conferences, music, theater and film events. The most interesting building was the theater hall. There is no division between the stalls and the gallery. This is how Oscar expressed his belief that all things (including art) should be accessible to people of any income level.

Oscar Niemeyer International Cultural Center. Aviles, 2011

Oscar Niemeyer: interesting facts

After the completion of the UN building in New York, Niemeyer was offered a position as dean at the Harvard University of Design, but throughout the architect's life, the US government refused not only a work, but even a tourist visa due to his membership in the Communist Party.
The alien forms of Niemeyer's architecture gave rise to many legends about his connection with “extraterrestrial civilizations.” These theories were supported by the incredible efficiency, fertility and longevity of the architect. Oscar liked this gossip, so he confirmed even the most ridiculous inventions.
Before emigrating to Europe, Namer was hired to design a building in Rio. The architect completed the drawing, but could not control the construction itself. Oscar visited the building only 21 years later. It turned out that the facade was not built exactly as it was in the drawings. Unable to come to terms with the builders' oversight, Niemeyer himself paid for the reconstruction of the facade.
During his expulsion from Brazil, the architect was treated kindly by the communists of the USSR. He received the International Lenin Prize “For Strengthening Peace Between Nations” and was elected an honorary member of the USSR Academy of Arts. In addition, books and articles were written about Niemeyer, and his works were well known to Soviet architects.
Oscar Niemeyer was survived by his only daughter, who died at the age of 82. Married for the second time at the age of 99, found 5 grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and 7 great-great-grandchildren.

More Oscar works

Brazilian Electoral Court building, 1958

Palace of the National Congress in Brazil, 1960

Headquarters of the French Communist Party, 1964

Cultural center "Small Vulcan" in France, 1982

Cultural center "Big Vulcan" in France, 1982

Oscar Niemeyer Museum, 2002

Lecture hall in Sao Paulo, 2005

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The centennial anniversary of the most famous Latin American architect, author of books (the last lifetime edition was “My Architecture - 1937-2004”) and many articles on architecture, at the beginning of the third millennium, in 2007, was celebrated by the whole world. The master accepted congratulations at his desk. “Legend of our time”, “living legend”, “classic of the 20th century”, “last great architect of the 20th century”, “poet of architecture”. This is the name given to the holder of the papal knightly order of St. Gregory the Great, the French Order of the Legion of Honor, the Austrian honorary badge “For Science and Art”, the Order of Santiago (Portugal), the Order of Friendship (Russia, for the 100th anniversary), the Order of Friendship of Peoples (USSR), Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (France), the Order of the Infante Don Enrique, laureate of the Lenin Peace Prize - Oscar Niemeyer, laureate of the professional Pritzker Prize (1988). Almost fifty awards and titles... The world from Ghana and Venezuela to Paris and Berlin seems to be collecting Niemeyer’s buildings. The largest collection of them is in the architect’s native Rio de Janeiro. And in total - more than 600.

Oscar Niemeyer or, more precisely, Oshkaer Ribeiro de Almeida di Niemeyer (Brazilians pronounce it in the German way - Niemeyer) Soares Filho, explained to the curious that his name combined Arabic, Portuguese and German names (his parents are Portuguese, his mother's surname is Ribeiro, his father's surname is Soares ; out of gratitude, his father added to his surname the German uncle in whose family he was raised); that, like most Brazilians, he is a karaoke, mestizo, which he has always been proud of.

His own house on a sloping area overlooking the ocean in Canoa, near Rio, will be called a masterpiece - truly an example of organic architecture. Even his unrealized projects, such as the Museum of Modern Art in Caracas (1955), in the form of an inverted pyramid on top of a cliff, with a recognizable ramp, attracted the attention of connoisseurs.

But another proposal from Kubizek, which he made to the architect after his election as president of the republic, can be considered a true “gift of fate”: to build an entire city, a new capital, on a deserted site, the name of which was formed only by adding two letters to the name of the country - Brasilia (in Portuguese Brazil is pronounced Brazil).

According to the plan, life was supposed to change here. The one in Brazil, on the one hand, is bright, with carnival samba, football, skyscrapers and luxurious beaches, and on the other hand, with no less famous favelas, that is, poor neighborhoods, and “generals of sand quarries.” (By the way, since 1984, the world-famous carnival in Rio has been held at the samba-drome, designed by Niemeyer.)

For three centuries, colonial, imperial, and then republican governments of Brazil and their opposition dreamed of moving the capital from overpopulated Rio de Janeiro. In the 17th and 18th centuries, a city on the Atlantic coast, which concentrated reserves of Portuguese gold and other riches, was a tasty bait for invaders from the ocean, which means there was a constant threat to the independence of the country itself. But even in the 20th century, a huge country with endless expanses needed to move the capital to the hinterlands, because the balance of the economy was upset in favor of the coast, which is why vast areas remained undeveloped. For the grandson of Czech emigrants with Roma roots, Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, Brasilia became a presidential election slogan.

Kubizek promising his people a breakthrough in the development of the country thanks to the construction of a new capital. He not only invited Niemeyer to lead its design (this happened in 1956), but also defended his candidacy with the political police, who were categorically against such an appointment (many were irritated by the architect’s communist beliefs about the unacceptability of exploitation and the equal right to happiness for everyone).

The President (like Costa, he was only five years older than his friend) gave Niemeyer complete freedom to develop the master plan, but he insisted on holding an open international competition, at which 26 carefully executed projects were presented. However, a sketch, equipped with handwritten comments, was accepted by his friend and teacher Luis Costa - Oscar Niemeyer knew how to be friends. (By the way, it is estimated that by 1965, at the request of friends, he had completed 53 architectural projects for free.) He was also easy-going and cheerful. Initiative, sharp, sensual. Intellectual. Rake. A workaholic - when, upon reaching the age of one hundred, due to various ailments he was carefully placed in the hospital, he protested: “I need to work, I need friends.” He played the ukulele - a small ukulele - and was a favorite in any company, which was so useful during the painful and heroic period of construction of the new capital. And most importantly, in addition to his great creative gift, he had extraordinary administrative abilities.

First of all, the symbolism and imagery of the drawing strikes the eye. The future city on the plan, called Piloto, simultaneously resembles a cross, an airplane, a bow and arrow, and a bird in flight. Costa himself spoke about the butterfly.

Based on Costa’s “drawing,” the designers, under the leadership of Niemeyer, developed a final version that mitigated the shortcomings of the draft solution. Oscar Niemeyer designed the main buildings for Brasilia himself.

The Minister of Defense then asked the architect what the building of his subordinate ministry would be like: in a modern style or in a classical one. Niemeyer asked him a counter question: “And you, general, what weapon do you prefer - classic or modern?” In the language of modern architecture, Niemeyer saw a tool for adjusting the existing reality...

In an interview with Nana Getashvili, Niemeyer recalled the start of construction: “I looked at it all again, at the injustice and poverty, and said: “We can start work.” After a year and a half of feverish preparation, construction began on a desert plateau where no road led.

The architects under the leadership of Niemeyer, feeling the need to be close to their brainchild, which was being born at an incredibly fast pace, decided to think through new projects on the spot and ensure a continuous and fast rhythm of work, which is achieved only with a clear and strict regime.” On an August morning in 1958, 15 people arrived in Brasilia - a still silent and abandoned land, “an endless and deserted sertan” (sertans are the name given to the inland arid regions of Brazil). The life to which they doomed themselves is reminiscent of life in Stalin’s zshkavedesh sharashkas, with the main difference - “everyone was friends, everyone was attracted by romance.”

However, for the whole world, the second half of the 1950s was a time of hope. Western cultural historians have designated it with the word “cheese”. “I remember our unpretentious homes - a bed, table, chairs and drawers - and at the same time the enthusiasm that made us forget about everything and think only about work, about the birth of the city,” Niemeyer said. And a few months before the end of Kubizek’s presidential term, the builders handed him the keys to the city, and he raised the country’s flag over the new capital. This happened on April 11, 1960, which celebrates Brazil's Independence Day, as well as the day the Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral discovered a new land. On the twenty-first of April, the midday sun is located exactly between the two twin towers, illuminating the main axis of the capital, right up to the memorial to Juscelin Kubitschek.

First Construction Materials They were brought to this red land, as if exuding heat, in self-settlements. The trees are from the Amazon and Africa. Rolls of grass came from Canada in huge quantities. They were rolled out and green lawns were obtained. After some time they dried out. New ones were urgently brought.

The first stage of construction was the creation of the artificial Paranua reservoir (along a river blocked by a dam), and it turned out to be huge - 80 kilometers long, 5 kilometers wide. According to the plan, the area around the lake was to become a citywide hearing zone and a water sports center. Water is present in one form or another in almost every object of Niemeyer's. He believed that “this substance is capable of breathing life into anything”...

Politicians and bureaucrats were in no hurry to move to the new capital. Then President Kubizek doubled their wages. And today there are more and more people who prefer to live in this strange metropolis, “inside” a work of modern art. Yuri Gagarin, after visiting Brasilia for the first time, spoke about this mysterious city: “From another planet, which is not Earth.”

The city, conceived and built according to a single plan, embodies the dream of an ideal technopolis. It has developed autonomous driving systems for pedestrians, cars and public transport, there are no intersections, and even now, when there are many more cars and people, there are no traffic jams. And there is no capital center in the European sense either. It is cut through by five wide roads. Separated by a space of 200 meters, they disperse in different sides. In some places, Niemeyer took roads underground “so that cars would not interfere with people’s movement.” (Ideally, he wanted cars to drive at a height of two meters above squares that would not be traditionally limited on all sides by buildings, so that a person, once in his square, would see only infinity around him...)

The famous Square of the Three Powers, which became a world landmark thanks to Niemeyer's architecture, occupies the “nose” of the virtual plane. Brasilia's two clear axes are separated by function. "Corpus" (east-west axis) - given over to government buildings. Wings (north - south) - residential areas, each of which has its own shopping street, its own schools, parking lots, church. In each microdistrict - sports complex. There is almost no traffic inside the green residential areas, there is peace and clean air everywhere. Residential streets are connected into “superquadras” (neighborhoods) with streets dedicated to retail and recreational areas. There are many parks - Brasilia has more green space per person than other cities in the country. And even the most simple houses for civil servants (no higher than six floors) are placed so that neighboring houses cannot be seen from the windows.

Typical ministerial buildings of Brasilia are located in the “body” of the aircraft. The designers took into account the wind rose and placed artificial reservoirs here in such a way that air currents, spreading along the 300 m wide esplanade, bring damp coolness to the city - houses raised on poles allow them to pass through unhindered. Plants were even carefully selected for landscaping residential areas: preference was given to broad-leaved ones.

In 1966, according to a project developed jointly with Luis Costa, Niemeyer began work on the construction of the National Theater building in the capital (the theater is named after the famous Brazilian violinist Claudio Santoro). The shape of a truncated pyramid subsequently made it one of the most attractive tourist sites in the city. Three auditoriums (for 60, 407 and 1,407 people) are designed for different sizes of performances and concerts.

Of course, construction in Brasilia continued in the future, despite the periodic cessation of funding. In the 1960-1970s, when the architect was not in the country, buildings for a wide variety of purposes were erected here according to his designs. In the tail of the “plane”, not far from the television tower, after the death of Zhi Kay (as Juscelina Kubitschek was called in Brazil), Niemeyer erected a monument to him, the silhouette of which from a distance resembles a hammer and sickle. During the years of the military dictatorship in Brazil, there were many attempts to remove the monument. However, the stubborn Niemeyer refused to change anything. Next to it, by 1981, the master deliberately built a memorial level with the green gentle hill, emphasizing its grandeur and scale only by its length (200 meters long). Thus, the architect tried to reflect what he considered to be the main character trait of Zhuscelina - modesty. An underground passage leads to the halls of the memorial. There is a museum here, a scientific and historical center that studies the history of Brazil and the activities of President Kubitschek.

In 2000, the authorities assured Niemeyer that they would allocate funds for the construction of a cultural complex in the new capital. The master replied that he had been waiting for the opportunity to complete the center project for 40 years. The last Niemeyer buildings in Brasilia were the National Library, designed in simple and noble parallelepiped proportions, and the National Museum (both in 2006, based on early designs of the 1950s) with a domed space.

The architect himself said: “What pleases me most is that sometimes when creating an important project, such as, for example, the Brasilia Museum, we can propose any thing that not only was not planned, but in which there was no necessity. So, for example, when designing the Museum, I created a kind of veranda that goes out on one side of the building and enters it on the other. It might not exist, but all those who get there love to walk along it...”

Thus, in the architectural appearance of Brasilia, Niemeyer combined domed and pyramidal forms, arrow-shaped columns, bowls, contrasting with parallelepipeds. Harmony was born not only from the modular combination of artificial forms, but also from the natural environment, which was created according to the architects’ plans.

“My friends have always been the poor,” Niemeyer said. For them, he built new, bright houses in Brasilia. But it so happened that as soon as the government moved to the ideal city, favelas were already being molded on its outskirts - the remnants of the free city, barracks that 60,000 workers built for themselves. According to Niemeyer’s plans, immediately after the opening of the new capital, the barracks were supposed to be demolished, but due to the administrative routine they were forgotten (and the workers did not want to leave). Now there are two million inhabitants in the satellite cities, and four times less in the city envisioned by the architects (many apartments are empty due to the high cost of living in the capital). And although UNESCO declared Brasilia a heritage of humanity, disappointment gradually mixed with Niemeyer’s enthusiasm, filling the old master’s heart with hopeless bitterness at the end of his life. But back in 1963, he proudly accepted the Lenin Peace Prize and became an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (USA). And simply the head of the College of Architecture of the University of Brasilia.

In April 1964, a military coup took place in Brazil. The office of the communist Niemeyer was destroyed, as was the editorial office of the magazine, of which he was one of the leaders.

In 1965, along with 200 professors, he left the university in protest against the reforms that the country had undergone. An exhibition of his works opened at the Louvre, and he left for France. And the next year he found himself in forced exile. However, nostalgia did not affect the working tone: his Paris office received orders from Ghana, Algeria (he was also proud of the building of the Houari Boumediene University of Science and Technology until his last days), Portugal (a casino in the capital of Madeira - Funchal), Italy, Israel ( here he designed the university campus in Haifa). In France, according to his design, the building of the headquarters of the Communist Party in Paris was erected (construction was completed in 1980).

In Grasse there is a residential complex. And in Le Havre, already in 1982, his amazing building of the Cultural Center appeared, which immediately received the name “Volcano” and, indeed, in shape resembles the mouth of a volcano. In the 1970s, he became interested in furniture design, collaborating with his daughter Anna Maria with Mobilier International and Tendo Brasileira. Niemeyer returned to Brazil in 1985, when the dictatorship was replaced by a political regime oriented towards democratic reconstruction. And from 1992 to 1996 he headed the Brazilian Communist Party (and this, we note, was at a time when, after the collapse of the USSR, communism as a socio-political doctrine was virtually doomed). A few years later he published his novel “And Now?” about an old communist who does not lose his ideals. He himself became a communist back in 1945.

Niemeyer died ten days before his 105th birthday in 2012. In the last decades of the last century and at the beginning of the new, he continued to amaze even those who were always looking forward to new forms from him with the variety of ideas. Museum in Curitiba, Cultural Center "Oscar Niemeyer" in Goiânia (2006), Cabo Branco building in João Pessoa (2008), Auditorium in Ibirapuera Park, Museum in Niteróya, in Aviles (Spain) - International Cultural Center of the Prince Asturias (opened in 2011, after the death of the architect received his name), the Oscar Niemeyer Auditorium in Ravello (2010, Italy) and other projects look like the embodiment of the imaginations of science fiction writers and are perceived as a living aspiration of the art of architecture into the future. And therefore, in today’s dictionaries they are already defined as “futuristic”.

He himself, while building for the future, valued the present above architecture: the ocean coastline visible from the windows of his house, friends and family, and in general - this whole life, which still needs to be changed for the better.

Buildings designed by Oscar Niemeyer are as much a brand of Brazil as coffee, football, carnival and the statue of Christ. On the eve of the opening of the XXXI Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Life #Home talks about the main architect of Latin America, in whose work, as it turned out, there is so much Soviet.

Oscar Niemeyer died in 2012 at the age of 104, leaving behind more than 400 buildings in 18 countries. The modern appearance of the capital Brasilia is largely due to him. His name became synonymous with the new Brazilian architecture. Over the 80 years of his work, he created the architectural appearance of the two largest Brazilian cities - Rio and Brasilia, leaving behind the outdated colonial style, so familiar to Latin America.

Oscar and the UN building

He began his career in 1939 by designing the Brazil Pavilion at the New York World's Fair. But Niemeyer achieved architectural superstar status after becoming a member of the team of architects involved in the development of the UN headquarters project in New York, the final appearance of the building was based on his ideas, which included only minor additions from his teacher, Le Corbusier.

After the completion of the UN headquarters, Niemeyer was appointed dean of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, but the US government denied him a US visa due to his membership in the Brazilian Communist Party. "Ideological enemy", they say...

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The fundamental novelty of the approach was the fusion of the utopian and the monumental: looking at the inverted white bowls and two parallel columns, one might think that inside this cosmic building there is a gallery of modern art or an art university, but certainly not the boring bureaucratic corridors of the National Congress of Brazil.

The same can be said about the cathedral in the form of hands raised to the sky, in which an unprepared viewer is unlikely to recognize a religious building. And it’s even more difficult to believethat all these plastic and fluid structures are built from monolithic reinforced concrete.

The most famous buildings that Niemeyer designed in Brasilia include the Palace of the National Congress, the Government Palace, the Ministry of Justice, the Palace of the Supreme Court, the Palace of the Dawn, and the Cathedral. After Brasilia was declared the new capital, Niemeyer resigned as the government's chief architect and returned to life as a private architect.

By the way, the casino in a wealthy suburb was never used for its intended purpose: in 1946, the Brazilian authorities passed a law banning gambling, and the building became the Museum of Modern Art.

Oscar and the communists

In his youth, Niemeyer was interested in communist ideology, and in 1945 he joined the Brazilian Communist Party, which twenty years later became a serious problem for him: then the government was overthrown due to a military coup.

Oscar Niemeyer sympathized with the USSR, was familiar with Fidel Castro, and in 1963 became a Lenin Prize laureate for “strengthening peace between nations.”

Because of his left-wing views, he had to flee the country in 1965 and settled in France, where he began designing residential buildings for Europe and North Africa, and also designed furniture.

Niemeyer designed the headquarters of the Communist Party in Paris in 1985, and a little later - at the end of the military dictatorship - he returned to his homeland.

Russia, unfortunately, is not included in the list of countries where Niemeyer left an architectural mark. But, despite this, the Brazilian has a lot in common with the Soviet constructivists: the same adherence to the principles of functionalism, the choice of clean lines and white color as opposed to any ornaments and textures, as well as projects for the construction of mass housing. The only thing that perhaps distinguished him from them was his love for smooth lines and curves instead of sharp corners and clear lines.

One of the most famous mass housing projects was the Copan residential building in São Paulo, reminiscent of a frozen sea wave, the largest residential complex in Latin America. The area of 6000 m² accommodates 38 floors and almost 5 thousand inhabitants. "Copan" even has its own zip code. This work echoes Le Corbusier's Marseille "Dwelling Unit" and the communal houses of the USSR.

Oscar wins Oscar

The 80s of the 20th century were a time of critical rethinking of constructivism, when such living classics of architecture as Mies Van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, who at one time proposed blowing up European cities in order to build them up with the same “house-machine for habitation,” were subjected to skepticism.

It was obvious that the communist project was failing all over the world, and criticism of the artistic principles of an ideology that had lost its relevance was taken for granted.

The Brazilian utopia was also criticized: Brasilia became a symbol of the decline of modernism and the unfulfilled promises of a bright future. Vast empty squares filled with monumental white buildings surrounded by slums seemed to symbolize extreme social inequality and alienation.

And in the late 80s, Niemeyer finally received the architectural Oscar - the Pritzker Prize. In his acceptance speech he said: "My architecture follows the old principle where beauty prevails over the limitations of constructivist logic."

Oscar Niemeyer continued to work until he was very old. In 1996, at the age of 89, he designs and builds the Museum of Contemporary Art in Niteroi, a fantastic flying saucer hovering over a cliff near the Atlantic Ocean.

One of the last projects of the great architect was the Ibirapuera concert hall in Sao Paulo. The red canopy above the entrance resembles a long protruding tongue - this is how the almost century-old architect “stuck his tongue” to the whole world.

In Russia, the name of Oscar Niemeyer became widely known in 1963 - after he was awarded the International Lenin Prize “For Strengthening Peace Among Nations.” Professionals, of course, knew about his buildings from foreign magazines that reached special libraries, but the moment of awarding the prize was decisive: Niemeyer’s book “My Experience in the Construction of Brasilia” with a foreword by Alexey Adzhubey and an afterword by Ignatius Milinis was published in Moscow; The magazine "Architecture of the USSR" published an article by Vladimir Khait and Oleg Yanitsky about the work of the architect. Now Oscar Niemeyer could be loved with all certainty - both as an architect and as a person. Before this, two more Brazilians were awarded such trust, but if in relation to the public figure Elisa Branco the Soviet intellectual had nothing to say except that she was a weaver (usually), then Jorge Amadou was already considered almost one of their own, and even the adjective to the Stalin Prize did not cool the warm feeling for the writer. Then there were more publications - both by Niemeyer and about him; It turned out to be extremely important that the architect was a man of integrity, not split by the wars of the 20th century. This split and subsequent fragmentation took place everywhere, and in the profession too: architects were divided into urbanists, volumetricists, theorists and, later, “interiorists.” Niemeyer, both by his wealth of nature and by education, happily combined both aspects, being in addition a talented artist and sculptor. This last gift was visible immediately, but developed and took shape already in adulthood. Then, in the early 1960s, it was especially important to hear his direct speech, because in most cases we received a “rehash of Caruso”, or rather, “Paul Robeson” - ideologically correct retellings, often dishonest, and sometimes simply stupid. My personal acquaintance with Niemeyer’s texts began when I entered the architectural institute in 1975. It was then that I purchased a book published by the Progress publishing house with the telling title “Architecture and Society.”

Oscar Niemeyer in his own house, in the architecture of which he included a fragment of rock. Downstairs in the living room his wife and grandson are reading.

It would probably be superfluous to mention that at that time every second, if not the first, student was an underground anti-Soviet; Foreign communists made me want to open their eyes, I wanted to say reproachfully: “Well, what are you doing, Georges...” And for Georges to repent, tear up his party card, refuse the Stalin-Lenin Prize and never hang out with communists again. Niemeyer turned out to be a tough nut to crack. From the lyrics, I felt it right away - and I was not mistaken. During his incredibly long life, this man did not change his views, maintaining to the end that there are only two real communists in the world - he and Fidel.

Now, re-reading this book, I understand and recognize his rightness - first of all, the rightness of the artist - and the consistency, without which everything that happened over the long years of his life (more than 500 (!) large-scale buildings) could not have happened. This understanding comes with the ability to re-evaluate the architecture of the 1950s and our 1960s and its social pathos. Architecture, which in those years was criticized from the right on aesthetic grounds, and today is also condemned by the left as “inhumane,” seems to me to be a choice and, as a result, a professional necessity for the artists making this choice. One should not think that serving society in Soviet times was correlated only with the scale of transformation. In 1977, V. Hight, in an anniversary article for Niemeyer’s 70th birthday, wrote words that were unexpected from today’s point of view: “From the first steps, Niemeyer’s work aroused sharp criticism and accusations of formalism. They especially intensified with the emergence of a new generation of architects in the architecture of capitalist countries, who opposed the aestheticism of their predecessors. However, these critics, while correctly noting the real shortcomings and contradictions of his work, often do not take into account the requirements of the social order that an architect is forced to constantly fulfill under capitalism: prestige, uniqueness, and deliberate flamboyance. Many young Western architects call for modest and even poor architecture (in some concepts, designed for subsequent decoration by the inhabitants), and come out with a kind of preaching of “small things,” which, perhaps, is reflected in the deterioration of the economic and construction situation in the 70s.” Here, Hight partly quotes the architect himself, who spoke about the desire of private clients to “give their buildings catchiness so that spectators will talk about them,” and acknowledges the validity of the criticism, explaining “certain shortcomings” by capitalist social orders. Some 35 years have passed, and against the backdrop of “deteriorating market conditions,” the preaching of small deeds began to sound in our country. Let us say, however, frankly: without that former adherence to principles there would be no today’s servility; the first does not at all contradict the second; moreover, the shortcomings of architecture, born of this adherence to principles, give today significant preferences to supporters of architecture as a type of public service. Conversations on Facebook are very revealing in this regard. Commenting on Niemeyer’s statement about the Brazilian slums (“This is an extremely important problem. But this is not an architectural, but a social problem, and it cannot be solved on the drawing board”), the artist Yuri Albert repeats reproaches for the formalism of 40 years ago: “Then he is not a leftist an architect, but a decorator of life. Producer of frozen music." And he adds: “Yes, good human architecture is usually made not by great architects, but by simple professionals.” It should be recognized that society has changed, society no longer needs titans. Simple professionals make convenient architecture; society, according to Haight, demands from stars not ideology and faith, but “prestige, uniqueness, deliberate flamboyance.” Niemeyer's latest works in Italy and Spain are that same "catchy architecture". Huge, plastically expressive toys from the category of what are now commonly called objects are a pure whim of a Europe that has not yet entered into a crisis. They are ideally made according to the architect’s early sketches, but despite this ideality they are significantly inferior to the power of concrete of the 1950s.

It must be said that this power resonated with the feeling and understanding of architecture of Soviet modernist architects. Socialist egalitarianism abolished selfish motives, and the most capable and ambitious were brought forward. Niemeyer's architecture delighted and excited; it showed the possible scale of transformation.

Numerous oral and written testimonies, and most importantly, buildings of that time tell about the search for the truth. On the return of the concept of honesty to architecture. About reckless faith in technical and social progress. Niemeyer wrote about himself - and about them too: “Today’s artist is not at all the same as the “misunderstood genius” of the last century. This is a normal person who looks at life and the people around him directly, and is deeply aware of the problems of modern society, from which the artist in the past avoided himself. His work is now acquiring truly universal significance. He knows that his art is only part of more important matters, and this, strange as it may sound, is the source of his creative power.”

Today it is difficult to expect something similar from our architects. Indeed, it was 50 years ago that Brazilian President Juscelino Kubitschek built a new city and moved officials there to end corruption. Half a century later, here in Russia, hardly any honest professionals believe in the eviction of officials outside the historical center of the capital.

In the book of my youth, the builder of the largest new city wrote: “I have designed hundreds of projects, but I must admit that on the whole I am not satisfied with my work, since it has never benefited the disadvantaged classes, and yet the poor make up the majority of the Brazilian nation... There is one thing that consoles me. This is something that I have never given the utmost importance to the architecture itself. My interests are directed directly to life, to social problems, to the political and economic liberation of my country, to the struggle against imperialism, poverty and ignorance.” Can any architect say something like that today? Take comfort in such a thought? Niemeyer not only spoke, he built - talentedly, a lot and differently.

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