The medical staff at the Hospital Samaritano in Rio, where he was being treated, said on national television that he died of a respiratory infection. 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 late 1940s, ’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 and a modern identity for Brazil 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.
SAO FRANCISCO DE ASSIS CHURCH
Church of Saint Francis of Assisi at Pampulha in Belo Horizonte. Built 1940. Starting what would become a historic partnership, Mayor of Belo Horizonte (and future Brazilian president) Juscelino Kubitschek commissioned 33-year-old Oscar Niemeyer to design a series of buildings in a subdivision near the city. Included in the project was the church of St. Francis of Assisi, considered an important example of Niemeyer's early formal experiments.
UN HEADQUARTERS
United Nations Headquarters, New York, New York. Completed 1952. In 1947, Niemeyer was named to a panel of international architects tasked with designing the United Nations Headquarters in New York. A combination of proposed designs by Niemeyer and Swiss architect Le Corbusier was eventually built.
COPAN BUILDING
Copan Building, Sao Paulo. Built 1951. In the 1950s and '60s, Niemeyer helped pioneer a Brazilian Modernist style of design characterized by organic, curving forms and the use of reinforced concrete.
BRAZILIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
Brazilian National Congress, Brasilia. Built 1958. Elected president in 1956, with the slogan "50 years progress in five," Juscelino Kubitschek set out to create a modern new capitol in Brazil's remote interior. Kubitschek tapped Niemeyer to design several of Brasilia's initial buildings, including the government buildings at the heart of the city in "Three Powers Square."
PALACIO DA ALVORADA
Palacio da Alvorada, presidential residence in Brasilia. Built 1957. "Palace of the Dawn" in English, Alvorada has housed every Brazilian presidents since Kubitschek.
CATEDRAL DE BRASILIA
Cathedral Brasilia. Built 1958. Despite being a lifelong atheist, some of Niemeyer's most iconic structures were Catholic churches.
LE HAVRE CULTURAL CENTER
Le Havre Cultural Center, Le Havre, France. Built 1982. In 1965, a right-wing military dictatorship seized power in Brazil. Facing intimidation because of his Communist political beliefs, Niemeyer relocated to Paris where he would work for nearly two decades. During this period he finished several projects in Europe and North Africa.
OSCAR NIEMEYER MUSEUM
Oscar Niemeyer Museum, Curitiba, Brazil. Built 2001. Following his return to Brazi in the 1980s, Niemeyer continued to work prolifically.
EL NIEMEYER
Oscar Niemeyer International Cultural Centre, Asturias, Spain. Built 2011. Niemeyer continued to work into old age, completing a four-building project in Spain at 103.
Oscar Niemeyer in 2009.
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