Oscar Niemeyer

"It is not the right angle that attracts me.
Neither the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man.
What attracts me is the free and sensual curve. The curves i find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuous course of its rivers, in the clouds in the sky, in the body of a beloved woman.
The Universe is made of curves, Einstein's curved universe." -- Oscar Niemeyer


The first thing I learned about Brazil I learned from a book at the Concord Public Library, where I worked in high school. I was shelving books in the 700s under the Dewey decimal system, which is full of art and architecture books. Before the library was renovated in 2004, the 700s were located in the Thoreau room, a beautiful room with large windows, magnificent light, and great art books.

I came across an architecture book on Brazil's capital, Brasilia. I started flipping through the book, which had many photos on the construction of Brasilia, a capital that was created during the 1950s under president Juscelino Kubitschek. The main administrative buildings were designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who worked with the famous Swiss architect/urban planner Le Corbusier.

The architecture of Brasilia, an entirely planned city, amazed me. Today I had a chance to go to the Museu Oscar Niemeyer, a great art/architecture museum here in Curitiba.

Here is a photo of Brasilia:


There are some great photos of Brasilia during the 1960s here