Niemeyer, Oscar

Niemeyer (Soares Filho), Oscar

(born Dec. 15, 1907, Rio de Janeiro, Braz.) Brazilian architect. Beginning in 1934, he worked in the office of Lúcio Costa, an early exponent of the Modern movement in Brazil. Niemeyer's first major independent project was the plan for Pampulha (1941), a suburb of Belo Horizonte. The project is notable for the free-flowing forms used in many of its buildings. Other commissions followed, and in 1947 Niemeyer represented Brazil in the planning of the United Nations buildings in New York City. In 1956 Niemeyer was asked to design the new capital city of Brasília; he agreed to design the government buildings but suggested a national competition for the master plan, a competition subsequently won by his mentor, Costa. Niemeyer served as chief architect for NOVA-CAP, the government building authority in Brasília, from 1956 to 1961. Among the Brasília buildings designed by Niemeyer are the President's Palace, the Brasília Palace Hotel, the presidential chapel, and the cathedral. Active into his nineties, he was commissioned to design the mushroomlike Museum of Contemporary Art in Niterói, Braz. (1991). With its lyrical and sculptural forms, his work is free-flowing and optimistic. Niemeyer received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1988.