Archinect - News

UNESCO adds three heritage sites to its 'in-danger' list

2023-01-26T12:15:00-05:00

The historic center of the Ukrainian port city of Odesa and sites in Yemen and Lebanon were added to the World Heritage List Wednesday by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). All three sites were simultaneously added to UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger. The statement said that the decision would give Ukraine access to “technical and financial international assistance” to protect and rehabilitate the city center.

Both the Yemeni site and, of course, Odesa were placed under the category in response to the ongoing conflicts afflicting both countries. The latter being of constant "grave concern” to the UN’s cultural body since its inception 11 months ago.

The third site, Rachid Karami International Fair in Tripoli, was designed by Oscar Niemeyer prior to the beginning of his exile from Brazil in the early 1960s. It had been left unfinished as a result of the long Lebanese Civil War that began in 1975. UNESCO’s nomination text cites “[an] alarming state of conservation, the lack of financial resources for its maintenance, and the latent risk of development proposals” as the reason for its inscription.

Oscar Niemeyer’s masterworks become the backdrop of Pro-Bolsonaro violence in Brazil

2023-01-09T13:26:00-05:00

At least 1,200 protesters were detained for questioning in the wake of the storming of Brazil’s capital buildings, a spokesman for the civil police said on Monday, as the authorities began dismantling the tent city where supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right former president, had been camping out since he lost October’s election.

Among the buildings designed by Oscar Niemeyer reported to be damaged are the Palácio do Planalto (Presidential Palace), National Congress building, and the Supreme Court, which several outlets reported were the primary target of protesters that had camped out in the capital for weeks following the disputed election.

Commentary and videos on social media showed rioters smashing windows and surmounting the roof of the Congressional building, where they unfurled an appeal to Brazil's military to stage an intervention.

The Planalto Palace, considered an architectural jewel by late Oscar Niemeyer and home to .@LulaOficial, is being destroyed by deranged Bolsonaro followers, mockingly known in #Brazil as “Bolsominions” pic.twitter.com/s9HZtnLM6S
— Robert Valencia (@rvalentwit) January 8, 2023 Assault on presidential palace, congress challenges Brazil’s democracy — Oscar Niemeyer’s modernism as stage for right wing insurrection https://t.co/gUffN1aWko
— Carolina A. Miranda @cmonstah@mast...

Pulling influence from Oscar Niemeyer, Brazilian firm designs residential building with distinct v-shaped pillar and aluminum facade

2022-08-01T18:38:00-04:00

A unique hexagonal residential building equipped with a distinctive aluminum “second skin” by Gisele Borges Arquitetura has risen in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Influenced by Brazilian architect, Oscar Niemeyer, the architects created a V-shaped pillar in order to place the geometric structure atop a single point on the ground.

Completed in 2021, the Caramirador Savassi residential building features 14 lofts and 24 studios across nine floors atop a narrow lot roughly 42 feet wide. As stated by the firm: “The challenge of its volumetric mathematics, to respect distances, was one of the factors that influenced non-obvious decisions resulting in architecture created with its own identity.”

Photo by Juliana Berzoini

The building’s most identifiable feature is its aluminum façade, painted in an "earthly reddish" sepia tone that references the abundance of raw ore in Minas Giras. In order to obtain lightness and transparency, the aluminum sheets received perforations in varying ...

One of Oscar Niemeyer's last drawings to be realized at Château La Coste in France

2022-04-07T19:24:00-04:00

France’s Château La Coste will make history this summer with the realization of one of Oscar Niemeyer’s last architectural drawings.

Set idyllically amongst the Château’s 500-acre estate in one of the country’s most significant wine regions, the latest in a series of pavilions will play host to a 1,250-square-foot art gallery and 80-seat cylindrical auditorium.

Image © Stéphane Aboudaram, WE ARE CONTENT(S), 2022

The project was initiated in 2010 and took more than a year to perfect, resulting in a striking final gift to his adopted home and its age-old craft, which Niemeyer considered a sacred and essential human activity.

Image © Stéphane Aboudaram, WE ARE CONTENT(S), 2022

Visitors will enter the pavilion’s glass facade across from a shallow reflecting pool that provides a perfect frame for the structure’s signature curved form and surrounding Provencial terroir. Niemeyer worked alongside founder Paddy McKillen and his grandson-in-law, architect Jair Valera, to select the site and ...

Oscar Niemeyer’s Communist Party Headquarters showcases a trippy Stella McCartney ready-to-wear show for Paris Fashion Week

2021-10-07T19:52:00-04:00

Under the Brutalist concrete dome of the Espace Niemeyer, the headquarters of the French Communist Party, which it turns out also bears a marked resemblance to a Martian bio-dome, the voice of the American mycologist Paul Stamets boomed out, reciting a paean to the powers of fungi to open the show.

Located in the Colonel Fabien in Paris’ 19th arrondissement, the sinewy building has been a favorite among fashion week art directors since the party’s finances dictating renting out the building after its opening in 1980. Fashion mainstays like Thom Browne, Yeezy, Prada, and others have all graced its auditorium whose 11-meter-high dome dutifully provides a cool, futuristic-looking backdrop for catwalkers underneath.

Video courtesy Stella McCartney on YouTube.

During his lifetime, Niemeyer ran in circles that included many prominent clothing designers like Piere Cardin and was a well-known admirer and collaborator with the fashion world as evidenced by his 2012 sneaker collection from Converse. Some pieces in the Stella McCartney show were made of a mushroom-based vegan leather called Mylo. Vogue has a full review of the collection here.

Carlo Ratti on Brasília's future

2021-09-02T15:22:00-04:00

Brasília’s design limitations offer a crucial lesson for many other cities. By resisting the temptation to fill every square inch of space on their paper and instead leaving as many blank areas as possible, architects and urban planners can allow people and changing times to co-create a city as spontaneous as life.

Carlo Ratti revealed plans last year for a one-million-square-meter extension of Brasília dubbed BIOTIC. Oscar Niemeyer's UNESCO World Heritage Site has been in disrepair for several decades. The whole text of Ratti's essay can be found here.

Oscar Niemeyer's Brasília turns 60 this year

2020-02-04T19:54:00-05:00

This is a good year to visit Niemeyer’s work since it marks the 60th anniversary of the inauguration of Brasília, the gleaming new capital of Brazil masterplanned by Lúcio Costa and designed by Niemeyer, built from scratch in barely four years and completed in 1960. I finally had my chance to visit the mother lode.

For The Guardian, Chris Hall on Oscar Niemeyer's modernist architectural legacy in Brazil, and arguably his greatest achievement — designing (with Lúcio Costa) the country's built-from-scratch capital Brasília six decades ago.

"If Rio is a creased duvet with the built environment and nature entwined in its folds, then Brasília is a crisp white sheet laid neatly across the savannah bed," Hall writes.

Aerial view of Brasília's central avenue, the Monumental Axis. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Strick House, Oscar Niemeyer's sole North American residence, can be yours for $55,000 a month

2019-02-01T20:02:00-05:00

The 1964 Strick House, is located in one of Los Angeles's most famous architectural enclaves; Santa Monica's highly sought after La Mesa Drive. This Modernist Architectural work is one of the most significant in the world and was Oscar Niemeyer's only residential project in North America. With its vaulted ceilings, walls of glass, and overlooking the Riviera Country Club, this estate holds unrivaled pedigree.

Los Angeles is the site of a significant number of mid-century gems, but the 1964 Strick House is a superlative of its own. The 5,000 square foot, single story residence overlooks the Riviera Country Club in Santa Monica, but it also contains its own tropical gardens within its half-acre lot.

Interior of Strick House, by Oscar Niemeyer. Photo courtesy of MLS

The Stick House, which is listed for $55,000 a month, also features furniture designed by Niemeyer, as well as George Nelson, Jean Prouve and a number of other legends of midcentury design.

Interior of Strick House, by Oscar Niemeyer. Photo courtesy of MLS

Productora and Isaac Broid’s Teopanzolco Cultural Center bordering Pre-Hispanic pyramids wins Oscar Niemeyer Award

2018-10-24T13:34:00-04:00

A concrete performing arts venue in Cuernavaca, Mexico that sits adjacent to an archaeological site has won the Oscar Niemeyer Award for Latin American Architecture. Started in 2016 by Redbaal, a network of Latin American architecture biennials, the biennial prize honors an exemplary project built in a number of participating Latin American countries. For its inaugural edition two years ago, the awards honored Barclay & Crousse's Place of Remembrance in Lima.

The selected work, picked from a shortlist of 20 projects, was designed by Mexican architect Isaac Broid alongside the firm Productora. Inspired by the Aztec ruins it borders, the Teopanzolco Cultural Center uses triangular geometries, sloping roofs, and sandy coloring to connect with the site—a place where "contemporary cultural life establishes ongoing dialogue with our past," says Broid.

The project has been featured on Time's list of 'The World's 100 Greatest Places of 2018,' and was one of six shortlisted projects for the ...

An Oscar Niemeyer house, built for his sister-in-law, gets an ambitious 5-year renovation from Brazilian artist

2018-08-27T14:55:00-04:00

Niemeyer originally designed the property for his wife’s sister, Carmen Baldo. Seven years ago, Baldo’s children sold it to the artist Adriana Varejão and her partner, the film producer Pedro Buarque.

The New York Times shows off a newly renovated home in Brazil designed by Oscar Niemeyer, one of the country's greatest architects. The five year long upgrade was carried out by Brazilian artist Adriana Varejão and her partner, the film producer Pedro Buarque, who dramatically transformed the dilapidated house, adding a pool, an outdoor living space, a patio and a much larger garden.

Oscar Niemeyer's former headquarters of L'Humanité recently photographed

2018-04-14T12:31:00-04:00

Another Oscar Niemeyer headquarters building in France has been newly explored by photographer Denis Esakov. This concrete undertaking was previously home to L'Humanité, a daily newspaper formerly a branch of the French Communist Party. Niemeyer completed this project in 1989 – take a look at its current state.

New photos of Oscar Niemeyer's Communist party headquarters in Paris

2018-04-11T16:40:00-04:00

Oscar Niemeyer's Communist party headquarters in Paris was recently captured by photographer Denis Esakov. Take a new look at the Brazilian architect's concrete achievement, one of his first in Europe.

New documentary portraits Sérgio Bernardes, Brazil's almost forgotten star

2015-01-12T13:45:00-05:00

Sérgio Bernardes was a star of 60s Brazil, a brilliant architect and a mesmerising man. And then almost forgotten. His grandson has made a film to discover what happened

Articulating Space: The Architecture of the São Paulo Biennial

2014-09-11T13:59:00-04:00

The São Paulo Biennial, which opened on September 6, is traditionally a contemporary art festival, but this year’s event puts new emphasis on architecture. Chief curator Charles Esche commissioned nearly 70 percent of the exhibition’s artworks, collaborating with a five-person curatorial team that included an architect for the first time in the biennial’s 63-year history (fun fact: it’s the world’s second-oldest contemporary art biennial).

Back to the Future in Algeria

2014-01-12T20:59:00-05:00

“We’re not used to seeing this shape in our country...We haven’t anything like this in Algeria. It’s very beautiful. It’s like a bird.” - Mekki Damerdji, an architect and professor in Algiers

Julie Bosman highlighted the work of Jason Oddy who has photographed some of the lesser known projects of Oscar Niemeyer. Niemeyer, a Communist who fled to France following the military takeover of Brazil in 1964, designed 12 buildings in Algeria in the late 1960s although only 4 have been built to date.

Niemeyer's Latin America Memorial building hit by fire in Sao Paulo

2013-12-02T19:24:00-05:00

Authorities in Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo, have fought a major blaze at a landmark building designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer. A large plume of smoke billowed from the Latin America Memorial, a cultural centre which hosts an art gallery, an auditorium and other facilities.

Containers without Content

2013-07-22T12:33:00-04:00

Far from being anchored in the local context, the project (the disastrous City of Culture of Galicia outside Santiago de Compostela, designed by Peter Eisenman) has decapitated Monte de Gaias and replaced it with a phony landscape with curves like those of a fun-fair roller coaster. These cynical intellectual manipulations cannot mask the reality of structures resembling supermarkets twisted about with algorithms and camouflaged with a thin veneer of granite (imported from Brasil!).

In a short sweet and illustrated article writer historian William J.R. Curtis puts several Bilbao effect projects in the trash can. It might as well be called "f..k content."

Editor's Picks #293

2012-12-11T02:07:00-05:00

For the latest in the Showcase series Archinect featured Villa Solaire by JKA + FUGA as well as Folkwang Library by Max Dudler. The Folkwang Library took advantage of a special photographic/glazing technique to create the illusion of the facade being fashioned from the stone material itself. Save Western pointed out "It looks like the original proposal was for actual marble, which came back astronomically expensive, so they VE'd to curtain wall instead."

For the latest in the Showcase series Archinect featured Villa Solaire by JKA + FUGA as well as Folkwang Library by Max Dudler.

Villa Solaire in Pied de La Plagne, Morzine, France is an ancient farmhouse converted into a luxury rental villa. The project made use of a traditional technique of decorative cut-outs within the wood strips resulting in a uniform perforated cladding, which wraps the whole facade.

The Folkwang Library located in Essen-Werden, Germany is an institutional project which , combined musicological programs/collections from three institutions under one roof. The Folkwang Library also took advantage of a special photographic/glazing technique to create the illusion of the facade being fashioned from the stone material itself.

royc commented "it's a bit too literal of a reinterpretation for me...I love the knife edge though, it's nicely done. I'd be really interested to see the interior of that space, with the stairs/atrium". Save Western pointed out ...

Oscar Niemeyer's LA house for Joseph and Anne Strick

2012-12-07T13:23:00-05:00

... he did design one house in the US, "where he was long banned because of his leftist political associations," according to an Architectural Digest story from 2005. The 1963 Strick House sits on Santa Monica's architecture-packed La Mesa Drive, and it was designed via post--Niemeyer never visited the site or met Joseph and Anne Strick, who commissioned the house (Joseph was a filmmaker best known for his adaptation of Ulysses and in fact divorced Anne before the house was even finished).

Eric Chavkin shared an interesting story about this house in the comments from the news post announcing Niemeyer's death...

I wrote this a couple of years ago

Go Oscar go...102 years.

In 1964 Oscar Niemeyer designed a residence for the art doc and film director and also producer Joe Strick. I got to meet Joe Strick as he was partners with a friend of mine, screenwriter and director Fred Haines, who I invited and they arrived to party at the book launch of Voluptuous Panic held at Adam Parfrey's Echo Park house.

That was fun evening. Of course Parfrey and I asked Strick about working with Niemeyer but the owner and architect never did meet only corresponded.

Funny how it goes; Inventor and new cinema filmaker Stick hires a world famous architect Niemeyer to design a modern home in Los Angeles, then the Brazilian architect's only residence in North America. During construction Strick and his wife divorce. The property is sold and later forgotten, almost demolished, b...

Tribute to Oscar Niemeyer by Norman Foster

2012-12-06T11:14:00-05:00

I was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Oscar Niemeyer. He was an inspiration to me – and to a generation of architects. Few people get to meet their heroes and I am grateful to have had the chance to spend time with him in Rio last year.

For architects schooled in the mainstream Modern Movement, he stood accepted wisdom on its head. Inverting the familiar dictum that ‘form follows function’, Niemeyer demonstrated instead that, ‘When a form creates beauty it becomes functional and therefore fundamental in architecture’.

It is said that when the pioneering Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin visited Brasilia he likened the experience to landing on a different planet. Many people seeing Niemeyer’s city for the first time must have felt the same way. It was daring, sculptural, colourful and free - and like nothing else that had gone before. Few architects in recent history have been able to summon such a vibrant vocabulary and structure it into such a brilliantly communicative and seductive tectonic language.

One cannot contemplate Brasilia’s crown-like cathedral, for example, without being thrilled both by its formal dynamism and its structural economy, which combine to engender a sense almost of weightlessness from ...

Master Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer passes away at 104

2012-12-05T19:16:00-05:00

"I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. I am attracted to free-flowing, sensual curves. The curves that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuousness of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean, and on the body of the beloved woman. Curves make up the entire Universe, the curved Universe of Einstein." - Oscar Niemeyer, 2000, The Curves of Time: The Memoirs of Oscar Niemeyer

We are sad to announce that one of history's most talented, dedicated, inspirational, and passionate architects has passed away at the age of 104 years, 10 days before his 105th birthday. Oscar Niemeyer has been in and out of the hospital a number of times this year due to complications related to various health issues, while never letting his focus deviate from his life's work.

Some photos of Oscar Niemeyer, and his work, throughout the years...

Ministries Esplanade with several of Niemeyer's buildings: the Nati...

Remarkable projects come from remarkable people

2012-11-15T12:22:00-05:00

Remarkable projects come from remarkable people and Inhotim is the creation of Bernardo Paz, a mining magnate who has lavishly installed his contemporary art collection across several hillsides in Minas Gerais, an estate of some 5000 acres. Paz has commissioned many architects, to make pavilions specially designed for individual artists, and others that house several artists’ works, all cushioned within the lush vegetation of a botanic garden.

Oscar Niemeyer teams up with Converse

2012-10-26T14:03:00-04:00

The man and the legend behind the concrete mecca known as Brasilia is a ripe 104 years of age, and though he was reported to have been “a bit dehydrated” at Rio’s Hospital Samaritano where he was hospitalized last week (he is thankfully “fine,” as doctors told ABC News), Niemeyer’s old age has not precluded his latest project, a collaboration with sneaker mega-brand Converse.

Oscar Niemeyer turns 104 today

2011-12-15T12:24:00-05:00

The man who was awarded the 1988 Pritzker Prize continues to devote his afternoons to working on new projects, including a theatre with a capacity for 2 500 people on Flamengo Park, near Rio's Sugarloaf Mountain. "I came up with a solution that is capable of prompting surprise and attracting the public: a magnificent dome which would be built before the Sugarloaf Mountain," he recently wrote.

Spain's €44m Niemeyer centre is shut in galleries glut

2011-10-04T13:26:26-04:00

A dazzling €44 million (£37.7m) arts centre in the northern Spanish city of Avilés is to close after six months amid political squabbling as the country asks itself what to do with a glut of glittering new museums. The Niemeyer centre, which was designed by the celebrated 103-year-old Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, was intended to have the same impact on the industrial Cantabrian sea port as the Guggenheim museum has had on Bilbao, 150 miles to the east.

Niemeyer’s still got it.

2011-04-21T12:53:00-04:00

The tower is unmistakably a Niemeyer creation. Standing tall in the heat of Brazil’s interior, it’s concrete dressed in a whitewash, the tower, like all his other creations looks as if it has been plucked from a 1960s conception of a city on the moon.

The Buzz from Brazil, reports on Torre Digital TV Tower, 104-year-old Oscar Niemeyer's latest project in Brasilia. News via this discussion.

Oscar Neimeyer's Samba

2010-12-06T14:55:00-05:00

"I don’t known where I find the time to play around with this, but my samba is just foolishness, a bit of fun, but nothing important," Niemeyer said in an interview published Saturday in the daily O Globo.

Oscar Neimeyer may have found the key to old age - positivity. To write a samba at the age of 102, while laying in a hospital bed titled "Tranquilo con la Vida" (Feeling Good about Life), is the sign of a special individual. The lyrics by Neimeyer will be performed by musicians Edu Krieger and Caio Almeida on December 15, his 103rd birthday.

Brazilian architect Niemeyer back in hospital

2010-04-26T19:58:00-04:00

The 102-year-old Brazilian architect has been hospitalized for undisclosed reasons..

A health official says renowned Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer has been hospitalized again in Rio de Janeiro.

A Hospital Samaritano spokeswoman says she does not have details on the 102-year-old architect's condition.

She spoke Monday on condition of anonymity because she is not authorized to be named under hospital rules.

Niemeyer spent more than three weeks in the same facility last October with an irregular heartbeat.

Weeks earlier, he underwent gallstone surgery and had an intestinal tumor removed.

Niemeyer designed much of Brazil's futuristic capital, Brasilia, and Rio's Sambadrome, where the annual carnival parade is held. He also helped design the United Nations building in New York City.

Oscar Niemeyer, stable after surgery

2009-09-29T22:27:00-04:00

After his first night out of intensive care, the Brazilian architect of 101 years has a stable status. Last Thursday he got a gallbladder surgery

Oscar Niemeyer at age 101, was reported stable after surgery in Rio de Janeiro, no date still for him to leave the hospital.

via LA NACION and in spanish.