Oscar Niemeyer

Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho (December 15, 1907 – December 5, 2012), known as Oscar Niemeyer is regarded as one of the main figures in the creation of modern architecture. The civic structures he created for Brasilia, a planned city that became the capital of Brazil in 1960, and the United Nations headquarters in New York among Niemeyer's most well-known works. In the latter half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries, his investigation into the aesthetic potential of reinforced concrete had a significant impact.

Niemeyer was praised as a great artist and one of the best architects of his generation, but he was also accused for being a "sculptor of monuments." He acknowledged that Le Corbusier had a significant effect on his work, but insisted in an interview that this "didn't preclude his architecture from heading in a different direction."

The development of midcentury modernist design was significantly influenced by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. At a time when the boxy International Style predominated and Mies Van der Rohe's maxim that "less is more" was the guiding principle of the architectural world, Niemeyer used strong curving forms in a way that anticipated the work of Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid. Although Niemeyer was a member of the design team for the United Nations Building in New York City, it is safe to say that his most well-known and ambitious work was the civic structures for Brasilia, the planned city that has been Brazil's capital since 1960.

Date of birth: December 15, 1907

Accomplishments: Palácio do Planalto, Palácio da Alvorada, Palácio do Jaburu, Itamaraty Palace, Cathedral of Brasília,....

Awards: 1963 Lenin Peace Prize, 1988 Pritzker Prize, 1989 Prince of Asturias Awards,1998 RIBA Royal Gold Medal, 2004 Praemium Imperiale,....