Oscar Niemeyer, one of Brazil’s most celebrated architects, and an internationally recognized titan of 20th century modern design, introduced curves to a modernist style that almost exclusively celebrated straight lines and angles. At a time when sharp edges were trending, his designs billowed and embraced curving forms, standing like sculptures against the landscape and sky. He believed that form should follow beauty, not function, as beauty is a function, and one as important to design as other rationalist features. Above all, he believed that architecture should inspire. 

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1907, as a child, Niemeyer loved to draw. Even without pen or paper, he’d use his imagination and his fingers to sketch against the sky. Later, he credited this exercise with the ability to design in his mind, saying in a vice.com interview, “... Now I think differently. Architecture is in my head. I am able to do a project without the use of a pencil. I can imagine the location and I can imagine the project I want to make. I think of all the solutions …” 

The modern architectural style popular at the start of his career was Bauhaus / The International Style. Its modernist lines, lack of ornamentation, mass produced materials, techniques and technologies, and streamlined shapes lacked the individualism, artistic freedom, and daring that his own designs expressed. Niemeyer ushered in an era of poetic experimentation and innovation that moved away from an allegiance to functionalism, and more towards a celebration of nature’s sensuousness. He was often quoted as saying that the curves in his designs were inspired by the curves of women, mountain ranges, snaking rivers, coastlines, and the curling of waves. With the help of talented engineers, and the flexibility and strength of reinforced concrete, he pushed the limits of construction, and created surprising undulating shapes and floating foundations. When reflected in water, even those of his designs most wildly asymmetrical or boldly modern appear as part of their environment.

Niemeyer entered the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro (the national art institute) in 1929, and graduated in 1934 with a degree in architecture and engineering. While still a student, he began working alongside leading modern architect and urban planner, Lúcio Costa. Costa was a mentor, and later partner to Niemeyer, and he brought the newcomer onto several major projects, including Brazil’s first internationally recognized modern public building, the Palácio Gustavo Capanema in Rio de Janeiro (also known as the Ministry of Education and Health). This project, which the celebrated Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier also consulted on (in one of many instances when the two men crossed paths), was an important one to be a part of. It introduced Brazil to the world as a modern country, and was acclaimed as, “... the most beautiful government building in the western hemisphere …” by the Museum of Modern Art, according to theatlantic.com.

Costa also brought Niemeyer onto the design team for the Brazilian Pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

The first project though, to announce Niemeyer’s uniquely independent architectural voice was his design for the Pampulha Architectural Complex in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, commissioned by then mayor, Juscelino Kubitschek in 1941 (Kubitschek would later go on to hire Niemeyer for his most notorious project ever, Brasília, read on below). The Pampulha Complex introduced Niemeyer’s daring design point of view and modern aesthetic, which the thewashingtonpost.com said, intended to, “confront the “monotony of contemporary architecture”. For his St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church inside of the center, Niemeyer created a series of rolling warehouse-like arched hangars, a design so unconventional and avant garde for its place and time, it sat unconsecrated for 16 years, deemed too unreligious, unsacred, and unfit for prayer by the local diocese. Today the complex is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Six years later Niemeyer cemented his place among the world’s leading architects with the invitation to join the international team selected to design the United Nations’ new headquarters in New York City. This project again placed him alongside the more famous Le Corbusier, and yet still, much of the final design is attributed to Niemeyer’s own ideas and contributions.

Another notable early design was Niemeyer’s Copan Building in São Paulo, Brazil, completed in 1951. In this modern interpretation of the traditional high rise, undulating curves add an unfamiliar suppleness to the contemporary skyscraper. 

Niemeyer’s most famous and infamous project though, was designing the architecture, as chief architect, for the major government buildings of the new Brazilian capital city of Brasília. This ambitious project, spearheaded by then President, Juscelino Kubitschek (former mayor of Belo Horizonte, who commissioned Niemeyer’s Pampulha Complex), proposed the creation of an entirely new capital city in the center of the country, to be built on a swath of tropical savannah called the Brazilian Cerrado. Reunited with Lúcio Costa, the project’s master planner, the two men designed a brand new city from the ground up. It was completed in a record 4 years, between 1956 and 1960, with the labor of at least 40,000 workers, and at the cost of millions of dollars. It’s now also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Brasília was intended to be a city of the future, a post-class society that would symbolically slough off Brazil’s history of colonial repression, and announce its entry into the global marketplace. Located in the center of the country, it represented a government equally accessible to all. These utopian ideals intersected with Niemeyer’s own beliefs (he was a lifelong member of the Communist Party), and he hoped that his contributions of beautiful architecture would support the emergence of this new, just society. Again in a vice.com interview he says, “ The architect must think that the world has to be a better place, that we can end poverty … it is important that the architect think not only of architecture but of how architecture can solve the problems of the world … The architect has to always be political. One has to help another - solidarity …”.  

In reality however, Brasília and Niemeyer’s architecture did not solve any issues of class, or birth a new utopian society. Despite dreams that its apartment buildings would house classless groups of people, no affordable housing was actually created, and the city’s apartment blocks were home instead to a mix of diplomats and government employees, who did not stay in town to cultivate a rich cultural and social life there, but jetted off to Rio and Sao Paulo on their weekends. Just like other big cities in Brazil, service workers and poorer citizens ended up living in the surrounding favelas. Without a true blend of all walks of life, Brasília as a town never quite arrived, and this was its biggest criticism. It did not foster a real organic social life. Its plazas, street corners, and outdoor public spaces didn’t invite socializing, and mostly remained empty, because the boulevards were designed for cars, not pedestrians, outdoor gathering spaces were lacking, and little thought was given to shading against the hot Brazilian sun. Residential areas were also perhaps too self-contained, with superblocks including their own schools, libraries, social clubs, and medical centers. The overall design just couldn’t escape its lab-grown feeling, and it never coalesced into a pulsating, thriving, wildly living city.

Despite its flaws, Niemeyer’s designs for Brasília have always stood out as stunning sculptural installations. His hopes and visions for the future were infused into these graceful structures that impose a serious sense of grandeur, and also a playful optimism. With his iconic architectural approach, many of the designs seem to float on delicate points and columns, or to barely touch the ground at all, and a theme of modernism meets classical design ties them all together.

Some of these celebrated designs include:

• The Cathedral of Brasília.

  An atheist, Niemeyer still understood the power of architecture, and his cathedral is an awe-inspiring place for prayer. The modern exterior doesn’t hide its structural supports, and bold white concrete strips embrace an airy interior, where a vast stained glass parachute-like ceiling floats over the spacious light filled sanctuary. Niemeyer won the Pritzker Prize for this design in 1988.

• The Itamaraty Palace.

  An elegant structure that blends modern and classical lines, with a curtain wall of glass set behind concrete colonnades and arches. Like many of his designs for the city, the Itamaraty Palace is reflected in a pool of water.

• The National Congress.

  A beautifully minimalist and asymmetrical sculptural complex that features two domes, one upturned and one down, and a slim duo of towers in between. Reminiscent of a balance scale, the left structure houses the Brazilian Senate, and the right the Chamber of the Deputies (earlier in 2023 this building and others in Brasília were vandalized by protesters supporting President Jair Bolsonaro).

• The Palácio do Planalto.

  Continuing the architectural theme of modern and classical lines and shapes, here the arches are elongated into modernist wings.

• The Palácio da Alvorada

  The official presidential residence, sited on a peninsula overlooking Lake Paranoá. In this design, Niemeyer turns the classical arch upside down, creating sweeping U-shaped curves that elegantly meet the flat modernist roof in delicate points.

• The Supreme Federal Court Building

  The aesthetic of modern glass façades and swooping classical lines is again reinterpreted here, this time with a perimeter of half-arches surrounding a sleek open faced entry and wall of glass.

After all of the idealistic hopes that Brasília would usher in a new liberal, and futurist Brazil, just four years after its completion, an authoritarian military dictatorship took over the country in a coup d’etat. They moved into Brasília, and perfectly inhabited its too massive boulevards and empty city spaces for the next 21 years. As David Underwood, author of Oscar Niemeyer and the Architecture of Brazil wrote, “Brasília is a city born of imperial ambitions and as such could only reinforce the existing colonial structures ...”. When his office began being searched, his person questioned, and his job opportunities cut off, Niemeyer left Brazil in 1965, not returning for almost twenty years. Learn more about the projects that emerged during this period of self-exile abroad in The Genius of Oscar Niemeyer - Part II!

Photos courtesy of Oscar Niemeyer, The United Nations Archives, archives.un.org.com, United Nations Photo, architecturaldigest.com, The Wall Street Journal, wsj.com, newyorker.com, wallpaper.com, Flickr, lonelyplanet.com, Gonzalo Viramonte, divisare.com, Rafa Neddermeyer, uk.gestalten.com, Rodrigo Marcondes, Agência Brasil, Tomaz Silva, arquitecturaviva.com, architectureau.com, otempo.com.br, lacgeo.com, Magda Biernat, CC BY-NC-ND, Nova Fisher, and novatravels.net.