Oscar Niemeyer

Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida de Niemeyer Soares (born December 15, 1907 in Rio de Janeiro, where he died December 5, 2012) is a Brazilian architect and designer. He is one of the most famous Brazilian architects. His work, which is closely aligned with the international style movement, holds a major place in the history of modern architecture. He is best known for the construction of Brasilia in Brazil with the town planner Lucio Costa, inaugurated in 1960. Exiled in Europe in the mid-1960s, he notably built the headquarters of the French Communist Party, the former headquarters of the newspaper L ' Humanité and the Maison de la culture in Le Havre. He received the Pritzker Prize in 1988 and was made Commander of the Legion of Honor in 2010. “When I draw, only concrete will allow me to master a curve of such wide scope. Concrete suggests flexible forms, contrasts of forms, by a continuous modulation of space which opposes the standardization of the repetitive systems of international functionalism. "- Oscar Niemeyer, Les curves du temps (memoirs), 1997 For the architectural historian William JR Curtis, Oscar Niemeyer belongs to the" second generation of modern architects ". His style is inspired by pioneers of modernism such as Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe but has evolved by being inspired in particular by Pablo Picasso and Jean Arp but also by the baroque heritage of Brazil. Oscar Niemeyer is influenced by Le Corbusier but stands out strongly, notably through his taste for curves as opposed to the rigid and functional style of Le Corbusier. He considers that an architectural work must be "beautiful and light". In an interview with Édouard Bailby, he explains: “While the right angle separates, divides, I have always liked curves, which are the very essence of the surrounding nature”.