Oscar Niemeyer died recently a few days short of his 105th birthday. Apart from his longevity, he was an extraordinary architect. His inspiration as he liked to say came from the curves of women. Max, unit master in first year and undergraduate coordinator recently visited and stayed in one of Niemeyer's works. Below are some images and a short text by Max.
Oscar Niemeyer (15 December 1907 – 5 December 2012)
"Here, then, is what I wanted to tell you of my architecture. I created it with courage and idealism, but also with an awareness of the fact that what is important is life are friends and attempting to make this unjust world a better place in which to live." (Oscar Niemeyer)
During a recent trip to São Paulo, I stayed on the 29th floor of Copan, Oscar Niemeyer's (1955) housing complex in the heart of São Paulo. Copan was conceived as pure spectacle whose image has created an afterlife in art and advertising. The 32 storey 1700 unit block includes nightclubs, art galleries, 500 parking spaces and a shopping centre. For me, Copan acts as much as sculpture as it does architecture.
“It is a modernistic world in miniature, the Unité d'Habitation relocated to the tropics, twisted, and blown up...” (Brazil, 2009 by Richard.J.Williams, p202)
The concrete, brises-soleil, serpentine facade creates a distinctive figure amongst the grey blocks of the cityʼs fabric that stretches as far as the eye can see. The 'S' shape plan operates in the register of an unconscious stitch in a wounded urban fabric, attempting to provide unity in an otherwise unplanned and divided city. Copan's defiance of both the urban grid and status quo typology of the city bravely inserts a degree of humanity and still offers a glimpse into an alternative future vision in an otherwise faceless city.
"The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed" (William Gibson, extract from interview in the Economist, Dec 2003)
Max Dewdney (December 2012)
