Niemeyer

Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida de Niemeyer Soares, an architect from Rio de Janeiro, lived incredible 104 years. He was certainly the most recognized brazilian architect of all times, and one of the most important of the world. Recognized by his projects in concrete and for his attraction for curved shapes, Niemeyer got Both lauded and criticized for being a "sculptor of monuments",[1] Niemeyer waspraised for being a great artist and one of the greatest architects of his generation by his supporters.[2] He said his architecture was strongly influenced by Le Corbusier, but in an interview, assured that this "didn't prevent [his] architecture from going in a different direction".[3] Niemeyer was most famous for his use of abstract forms and curves that characterize most of his works, and wrotein his memoirs:most of his inspiration from the feminine beauty.

"It is not the straight angle that attracts me, nor the straight line, inflexible, hard, created by man. What attracts me is the sensual and free curve, the curves I find in the mountains of my country, in the course of rivers, in the waves, in the body of the favorite woman. The whole universe is made of curves, the curveduniverse of Einstein."

While in Paris, Niemeyer began designing furniture, which was produced by Mobilier International. He created his easy chair and ottoman composed of bent steel and leather in limited numbers for private clients. Later, in 1978, the Japanese company Tendo, then Tendo Brasileira, produced this chair and other designs including the’Rio’ chaise lounge in Brazil. The easy chairs andottomans were made of bent wood and were placed in different Communist party headquarters around the world. Much like his architecture, Niemeyer's furniture designs were meant to evoke the beauty of Brazil, with its sensuous curves mimicking the female form and the hills of Rio de Janeiro.

His Influence:
The Corbusian influence is evident in the early works of Oscar Niemeyer. However, thearchitect gradually acquired his own style: the lightness of the curved forms created spaces that transformed the architectural scheme into something that was hitherto unknown; harmony, grace and elegance are the adjectives that are most appropriate to describe the work of Oscar Niemeyer. The adaptations produced by the architect to connect the baroque vocabulary with modernist architecture madepossible formal experiences in spectacular volumes, executed by famous mathematicians including the Brazilian Joaquim Cardoso and the Italian Pier Luigi Nervi. The use of reinforced concrete to form curves or as a shell and the unique use of the aesthetic possibilities of the straight line were translated into factories, skyscrapers, exhibition centres, residential areas, theatres, temples, head officebuildings for public and private sector companies, universities, clubs, hospitals and buildings for various social schemes.
Once again, The New York Times Obituary says it better than I ever can:
 
“Mr. Niemeyer was among the last of a long line of Modernist true believers who stretch from Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe to the architects who defined the postwar architecture of the late1940s, ’50s and ’60s. He is best known for designing the government buildings of Brasília, a sprawling new capital carved out of the Brazilian savanna that became an emblem both of Latin America’s leap into modernity and, later, of the limits of Modernism’s utopian aspirations.
His curvaceous, lyrical, hedonistic forms helped shape a distinct national architecture<http://www.youtube.com/channel/HCal4opBd0tRw>  and a modern identity for Brazil <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/brazil/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>  that broke with its colonial and baroque past. Yet his influence extended far beyond his country. Even his lesser works were a counterpoint to reductive notions of Modernist architecture as blandly functional.”

WHEN Oscar...