Biografía:
Río de Janeiro, 1907 Oscar Niemeyer was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on the 15th December 1907. He graduated from the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro in 1934. At this time he joined a team of Brazilian architects collaborating with Le Corbusier on a new Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro. He worked with Lucio Costa and Le Corbusier till 1938 on this project. While working on this project he met the mayor of Brazil's wealthiest central state, Juscelino Kubitschek, who would later become President of Brazil. As President, he appointed Niemeyer to be the chief architect of Brasilia, a project which occupied all of his time for many years. Only one year later, 1939, he and Costa designed the Brazilian pavilion at the New York World Fair. The series of buildings Niemeyer created till 1942 were heavily influenced by the Brazilian baroque style in architecture. 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 in New York. In the 1950's, he designed an Aeronautical Research Center near Sao Paulo. In Europe, he did an office building for Renault and in Italy, the Mondadori Editorial Office in Milan and the FATA Office Building in Turin. In Algiers, he designed the Zoological Gardens, the University of Constantine, and the Foreign Office. From 1957 till 1959 Niemeyer was appointed architectural advisor to Nova Cap- an organization charged with Luis Costa's plans for Brazil's new capitol. The following year he become Nova Cap's chief architect, designing most of the city's important buildings. The epoch of Niemeyers career, these buildings mark a period of creativity on modern symbolism. Five years later, in 1964, his political affiliation with the communist party forced him into exile in France. There he constructed the building for the French communist party. With the end of the dictatorship he returned to Brazil, teaching at the university of Rio de Janeiro and working in private practice. He received the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architecture in 1970. Influenced by Le Corbusier, and using the material and building language of the International Style he enriched it with the natural, flowing curves of South American architecture and developed his typical fluid and sculptural style. 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. Although semi-retired, he still works at the drawing board and welcomes young architects from all over the world. He hopes to instill in them the sensitivity to aesthetics that allowed him to strive for beauty in the manipulation of architectural forms. About his own career and his views on architecture, Niemeyer once said: "Architecture must express the spirit of the technical and social forces that are predominant in a given epoch; but when such forces are not balances, the resulting conflict is prejudicial to the content of the work and to the work as a whole. Only with this in mind may we understand the nature of the plans and drawings which appear in this volume. I should have very much liked to be in a position to present a more realistic achievement: a kind of work which reflects not only refinements and comfort but also a positive collaboration between the architect and the whole society. I have always," says Niemeyer, "accepted and respected all other schools of architecture, from the chill and elemental structures of Mies van der Rohe to the imagination and delirium of Gaudi. I must design what pleases me in a way that is naturally linked to my roots and the country of my origin."
