Abstract

The Radical Modernism of Oscar Niemeyer. Arquitectura y Urbanismo [online]. 2013, vol.34, n.2, pp. 05-26. ISSN 1815-5898.

As the pre-eminent figure of one of the most innovative and irreverent national interpretations of architectural modernism, and radical critic of orthodox modernist aesthetic formulae and moralizing ideologies, Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012) occupies a unique place in the history of architecture. Motivated by a post-colonial wish to undo the image of Brazil as backward, he privileged invention and tirelessly explored the structural and formal possibilities of reinforced concrete, striving for ‘splendour’ and ‘lightness’ - qualities in excess of the functionalist fulfilment of programmatic requirements. Transgressing doctrinaire Modernism and subverting hegemonic cultural models, Niemeyer’s work affirmed spectacle and luxury, pleasure, beauty and sensuality as legitimate architectural pursuits. His aesthetic of excess, habitually interpreted as a reflection of Brazil’s tropical Otherness, was rooted in the country’s native traditions and tropical landscape, and challenged the dominance of clean white walls, straight lines and right angles, which, for Niemeyer, ‘issued from a European ethical tradition’.

Keywords : Oscar Niemeyer; modernism; brazil; antropofagia; irreverence; transgression of orthodox modernism; subversion of hegemonic cultural models; decolonization.

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