Archinect - News

ARQBR Arquitetura e Urbanismo brings a circular concrete church to Brasília

2023-06-26T17:41:00-04:00

Brazilian firm ARQBR Arquitetura e Urbanismo’s Church of the Holy Family is a striking new circular, concrete structure that seeks to connect Brasília’s urban and natural landscape.

Image: Joana França

The church is located on the edge of the capital’s EPIA (Park Road of Industry and Supply), which was one of the main components of the radio-centric road system implemented by Brasília’s planner Lucio Costa.

Image: Joana França

The structure’s architectural concept aims to adopt the relationship between spirituality, nature, and community. It brings together a collection of simple, concrete monoliths, reflecting the three core principles of Brasília’s design.

Image: Joana França

They are the ability to open to the horizon, the inseparability between public and private spaces, and the use of the landscape as a structuring and fundamental element of the architectural configuration.

Image: Joana França

The church’s circular volume is suspended by six pillars. This forms a small opening ...

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...

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.

Studio Gang Architects selected to design new U.S. Embassy in Brazil

2016-03-09T12:55:00-05:00

Out of a shortlist of six firms, The Department of State's Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations has chosen Studio Gang Architects, run by MacArthur fellow and winner of 2016's Architect of the Year from the Women in Architecture Awards, Jeanne Gang, to design a multi-building campus for the new U.S. Embassy based in Brasilia, Brazil. Studio Gang Architects, which has tackled such easy breezy projects in the past as a proposal to reverse the flow of the Chicago River, was chosen in part for its "more than 20 years of collaborative experience executing projects with complex constraints at challenging sites," according to a press release. The new embassy, which will rebuild the existing compound on its 12 acre site, will feature a Marine Security Guard Residence, a Chancery, and various support facilities.

For more on what the Gang has been up to:

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

Neo-Classical falls foul of Brazil’s love of Baroque

2014-09-02T14:19:00-04:00

Through the free-flowing talent of Costa, Niemeyer, Burle Marx and Athos Bulcão, Brasília—the only city built in the 20th century that is listed by Unesco—has captivated the world since 1960. But the federal capital has not made Modernism sacred in the country as a whole and the protection of Modern architecture is still in its infancy.

Megastructures are the Shopping Malls of the Avant-Garde

2012-03-27T12:51:00-04:00

What About ideal cities, and counter revolutionary master plans?

Avant-Garde
The avant-garde is a paradoxical state. In order to exist, it relies on its incongruous condition of being both fundamentally contemporary and ahead of its time. A conceptual palimpsest, the avant-garde requires writing its history over its own past keeping a vulnerable balance between present problems, and possible future solutions. All about contextualizing the perfect timing, what happens when the avant-garde goes out of sync; when its solutions are overlooked for being too premature, or ridiculed for being delayed?

In the past century alone, the avant-garde was victim of two untimely appearances. In the first one, its proposals arrived too early; the world was taken aback by the boldness of its ambitions, by the audacity of its delirium. In the second coming, the avant-garde was too late. Here its stratagems were on a futile mission of inventing a program that already existed.

These consecutive...

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.

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.