Oscar Niemeyer

Oscar Niemeyer Soares Filho (born December 15, 1907) is a Brazilian architect who is considered one of the most important names in international modern architecture. He was a pioneer in the exploration of the constructive possibilities of reinforced concrete.

The Pampulha project

In 1940 Niemeyer met Juscelino Kubitschek, who was at the time the mayor of Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais. He and Minas Gerais Governor Benedito Valadares wanted to develop a new suburb to the north of the city called Pampulha, and commissioned Niemeyer to design a series of buildings to be known as the "Pampulha complex".

Related Topics:
1940 - Juscelino Kubitschek - Belo Horizonte - State of Minas Gerais - Pampulha

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The buildings were completed in 1943, and provoked some controversy. They received international acclaim following the 1942 exhibition of Brazilian architecture (Colonial and Modern) at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The conservative Church authorities of Minas Gerais refused to consecrate the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi, in part due to its unorthodox form, in part due to the mural painted by Candido Portinari and the fact that it contained no confessional. The mural depicts Christ as the saviour of the ill, the poor and, most importantly, the sinner.

Related Topics:
1943 - Church of Saint Francis of Assisi - Mural - Candido Portinari

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In Pampulha, Niemeyer started to mark his style: he used the structural properties of the armed concrete to give sinuous forms to the building. When Niemeyer draws a building he makes it with the minimum of possible traces, as organic and trembling as a gesture of the hand. However, he denies that his buildings have an aesthetic more important than function: he often wrote elaborate justifications of the details of his projects, wherein he described the function of each curve of the building. He said that if he could not justify an idea in one paragraph, he gave it up. Also later he would say that a form that conveys beauty is useful in itself.

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