Oscar Niemeyer. The Once and Future Dawn

On the occasion of Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer’s 100th anniversary, the New York Times wrote, “In the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s he established himself as one of Modernism’s greatest luminaries, infusing stark abstract forms with a beguiling tropical hedonism that reshaped Brazil’s identity in the popular imagination and mesmerized architects around the globe.” Until his death at age 104 in 2012, over seven decades since one of his first projects-a 1936 collaboration with Lucio Costa and Le Corbusier-Oscar Niemeyer was still practicing. A technical pioneer and one of the 20th century’s most important architects, Niemeyer has designed close to 700 realized and unrealized buildings and, most notably, was the architect for the principal monuments in Brasilia, his homeland’s futuristic capital city and his undisputed major masterpiece.