Oscar Niemeyer, un architecte engagé dans le siècle (2001) - full transcript
I am not attracted by a right angle,
or a straight, hard, inflexible line
invented by man.
I'm attracted by
a free, sensual curve,
the curve I see
in the mountains of my country,
in the winding rivers, the waves of the
sea, the body of the woman I love.
Curves make up the Universe,
the curved Universe of Einstein.
My name is Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida
de Niemeyer Soares.
They call me Oscar Niemeyer,
I don't know why...
Ribeiro and Soares
are Portuguese names.
Almeida is probably an Arab name.
Only Niemeyer is German.
It's different, so it stuck.
My name has four different origins :
black roots, maybe an Indian hidden
somewhere in the family tree.
I'm of mixed blood and I'm proud of it.
The last project I carried through
was the Niteroi Museum,
a very well located building
which pleases me greatly.
The building was easy to design
as the site was like this:
the sea surrounds it completely.
The problem was
the vertical resting point.
The idea of its architecture
came to me by doing this,
something like a flower.
I didn't want to have two blocks
on top of each other,
I wanted one single line like this,
which summarises the whole project.
Next I outlined the landscape.
I designed the building like this.
The inside walls are more rectilinear.
I designed a gallery from which
to view the fantastic scenery.
There's a ramp that comes here.
People stand there, outside.
I enjoyed creating this ramp
which invites people to enter
the beautiful architecture
of the museum.
A curious visitor will enter
with even more pleasure.
The Niteroi concept came
to me spontaneously.
The shape came into being
like a flower.
Some think
it looks like a flying saucer
because of the knoll above it.
But it's not. This is the idea.
I've designed other projects,
many of them.
There are about 500 projects here
which required no effort at all.
It was sheer pleasure working
at my drawing board, imagining.
Architecture was
a natural choice for me.
Up to the age of twenty, I wasn't
thinking of anything in particular.
My life was easy-going until I got
married and needed to earn a living.
Architecture is the path I chose.
I bore in mind Le Corbusier's phrase:
"Architecture is invention."
It must be different, innovative,
triggering astonishment and surprise.
When I started working,
architecture was rigid,
full of right angles.
There was nothing like the new
technology of reinforced concrete.
There was so much scope for
an architect's imagination.
So my first concern was to understand
the existence of the curve,
its importance and the fact that
when you need to cover a wide span,
the curve is a natural solution.
This first phase was
a liberation in terms of form:
the use of curves in architecture.
That's when I designed
the Pampulha Church in 1940.
I used curves all over the church.
In the same spirit, the ballroom and the
yacht club were built around the lake.
The ballroom restaurant had
an awning made of curves.
I believed the curve was essential.
Juscelino Kubitschek
had been elected mayor.
He wanted me to design
a whole district, something different
located near a dam at Belo Horizonte,
something fantastic.
He even specified: "I want
the casino project by tomorrow."
It was a challenge,
as you can imagine.
But I was young, so I rose to meet it.
I returned to my hotel.
I worked all night and finished it.
And that's how my career
as an architect took off.
Sometimes one produces something with
a certain originality, as in poetry.
Not something inflexible, a problem to
be solved with a square and a ruler,
rather something which comes unbidden,
like a dream.
With my very first project,
I realised I had to call upon artists,
I had to revive the integration of
plastic arts started at the Renaissance.
The church of Pampulha
remained unused for six years,
because it did not suit
the religious authorities.
It should have been made in the style
of the old Minas Gerais churches.
They did not understand that it is not
a question of ancient or modern.
Architecture is either good or bad.
My concern is for architecture
to fit in with the ground,
so that it does not change
the slope of the plot.
My house at Canoas
is a good example.
The ground was like this.
I placed the living room here
and the bedrooms downstairs,
I didn't touch the ground.
The roof came afterwards in this shape
and there's a wall here,
the slab fits in like this
and here is a rock that I left untouched
and put the pool here.
The shape of the swimming pool
fits in the area naturally.
The trees have grown
to complete the composition.
Architecture is full of such secrets.
It must fit in perfectly,
that's all there is to it.
I love coming back to see the houses
I used to live in,
and remember how beautiful they were
and the lifestyle I enjoyed there.
They are like people worn over time,
more fragile each day.
A house is important,
it's the place we live in,
the place where
we suffer, laugh and cry.
Those feelings make me want to return
to remember times past.
We used to go and walk
in the Botanical Gardens.
I enjoyed strolling along
the gravel paths
to see the exuberant
green tropical growth,
to stop at each plant, read
its scientific name, so complicated.
Anita followed me contentedly,
Anna Maria ran joyfully ahead.
How beautiful nature is!
It grows and spreads.
It maintains a structural logic
within each of its secrets.
It's like Capoéra.
This dance was originally aggressive,
for fighting.
- It's beautiful.
In the past, they used their fists.
Now it's done with swords.
The Japanese take this seriously.
Nowadays, it has lost its meaning.
I remember this place very well.
Such vivid memories. I used to come
here as a child and after I got married.
I would draw the trees, seeking to
capture the spirit of each plant.
A drawing that would become
architecture later on...
I enjoyed those moments.
Brazilian civilisation is a result
of the European civilisation
introduced here by the Portuguese.
They settled in Brazil,
locking it into a straitjacket,
especially in cultural terms,
where it was at a disadvantage.
Therefore, Oscar's style, his creativity,
the new shapes he conceived,
have contributed to form
our own vision of modernity,
our modern Brazil.
There is no doubt that Oscar, using
Le Corbusier's work as a starting point,
created his own language,
which transformed modern
architecture of the twentieth century.
I am from Rio, from the beaches,
the mountains... Rio has it all.
Beautiful women stroll by,
everyone enjoys.
You fight when you have to.
You suffer when you have to.
You laugh a little...
That's the way of the Carioca.
I remember one day
Le Corbusier telling me:
"You've got Rio's mountains
in your eyes."
But that's not so, there's more.
There are women too...
No, my architecture is not what
Le Corbusier said it was.
It's more like something André Malraux
used to say about having
his own personal museum
where he kept all he had seen
and loved in his life.
I always felt I was inhabited
by someone more extreme than myself.
This 'other person' is full of mischief.
It is he who has the craziest ideas.
Sometimes he wants to do things
but I have to hold back.
He is my driving force in architecture.
He loves curves, women
and the most fascinating things.
I believe
that is what life is all about.
I'm an animal like any other,
I've got a one track mind...
Without women, life's not worth living.
It's an unavoidable fact.
Woman is man's companion,
she is indispensable.
She is the incarnation of humanity,
the queen of mankind, she's fantastic.
I often approach a project without
touching a pencil or felt pen.
I hold everything in my mind.
I give free rein to my imagination
to seek out solutions. Sometimes,
the solutions come through drawing.
The basis of architecture
is drawing and reflection.
In Algeria, I remember
working on a mosque.
I was at home, in bed.
I could not sleep for thinking about it.
I was thinking of the shape,
of the columns.
I got up and drew it.
Here's how the mosque
appeared to me.
I did the columns like this,
another like that, and another
and so on.
I thought it should stand
by the sea, on the coast.
The project took form without
the use of a pencil, just by thinking.
The mosque looked good.
I remember when I showed the model
to Boumédiene, the President of Algeria,
he said to me:
"Oscar, this mosque is revolutionary"
and I answered:
"There's no stopping a revolution."
When I reach a solution, with
well-defined sketches, I write a text.
The text is an attempt
to explain my architecture.
If I cannot explain it,
I go back to my drawing board
because it means
something is missing.
It is when an idea
springs forth that
one perceives what architectural
creativity is all about.
It is the moment of satisfaction
at having found the right solution,
something different,
something that can be built.
That is the architect's dream.
Drawing is a marvellous thing.
When a child draws,
it is always beautiful,
because for him
it is an act of freedom.
A child has no preconceived ideas,
only spontaneity.
Freedom and drawing
are fundamental in life.
As the palace doors open,
the crowds swarm into the gardens.
Workers, women, young and old shake
hands with the head of government,
they embrace him
to show their support...
Juscelino was an optimist by nature
and in his vision of the world,
he was open to innovation,
full of enthusiasm.
He played an instrumental role
in the intensification of
Brazil's industrialisation.
When he became
President of the Republic,
he immediately thought of Oscar
for his partner
to help him realize his crazy dream
of building a new capital : Brasilia.
Juscelino came to see me at home,
we went to town together,
that's where he said to me:
"Listen I want to build a new capital,
it will take up where Pampulha left off.
I need you."
That was his favourite work,
he dreamed of building a new capital.
He wanted the capital
to be further inland
to develop the heart of the country.
It worked.
It springs from the primal gesture
of choosing a site
or taking possession of it.
Two main axes
cross at right angles.
In other words,
the Sign of the Cross.
Brasilia is not an utopia,
but it is the expression
of a different, more modern Brazil,
which rejects its colonial past.
One of the most
extraordinary aspects
of the geographical location
of Brasilia
is the way
of the great Brazilian West.
In a sense,
has turned its back on Europe,
and is embracing
its American destiny.
It is the 'Wild West'.
The West.
Each time I went to Brasilia by car,
I would pass the time
by watching the clouds.
They suggest
SO many unexpected things.
At times,
huge and mysterious cathedrals,
then fearsome warriors, or Roman
chariots cutting across the skies,
or some strange monster
carried off on mischievous winds...
The captains leading the toughest,
yet most pacific, Brazilian battle
draw the layout
for the pathways of life.
Meanwhile,
the heavy machines of this war
open, conquer and harness
the wide spaces.
25,000 horsepower will be produced
by a power station 13 km from the city.
In Brasilia, a lake will be formed
that is larger than Guanabara Bay.
Brasilia was quite an adventure !
When I first came to Brasilia,
it seemed like the end of the world,
so far from everything.
There were no roads, nothing...
and we had only three and a half years
to build a capital city !
I didn't go to Brasilia
with architects alone.
I went there with four friends
who had no specific jobs,
they were all in dire straits and
I felt this was the right time to help.
In the beginning,
there were no creature comforts.
We lived with the workmen
in rough dwellings.
All we had was a bed
and a chest.
We worked in a hut with a tin roof.
It was there that we designed
all the palaces of Brasilia.
Architects Lucio Costa
and Oscar Niemeyer.
The first is in charge of town planning,
the other, of architectural works.
Both are technician-cum-artists,
rightly admired the world over.
They use lines, volumes,
colours and space to compose
the Brasilia symphony.
Oscar contributed enormously
to this vision
and modernized
the image of Brazil abroad.
Never had contemporary architecture
had the opportunity
to build a work of such scope.
Modern architectural achievements
had always taken place
within an existing framework.
Now, suddenly an architect
has been commissioned to construct
the fundamental edifices,
the major buildings of a new capital.
On the Square of the Three Powers, in
the presence of President Kubitschek,
the public attends the laying
of the first metallic structure.
With each passing month, the panorama
of Brasilia is transformed.
The feverish pace of building
speeds up,
as the inhabitants move in.
Classrooms are not fully equipped,
yet lessons have already started,
for culture cannot wait.
One sturdy Brazilian
inaugurates the maternity ward.
Work does not stop at night.
There is too much
to be accomplished.
We had no time.
We would produce a drawing
and the following day,
Joachim Cardoso would start
on the calculations.
Building would start before structural
calculations were completed.
This was done
as the works progressed.
The main building is the Congress.
It looks simple. In three lines,
you get an idea of its architecture.
When the structure was finished,
the architecture was already there,
but it had been hard going.
I remember Cardosa
calling one day to say:
"Oscar, I've discovered the tangent
to create the effect that the dome
is hardly touching the ground."
Then, despite the rush, we discussed
the thickness of the slab.
For instance,
this slab is 40 cm thick,
and here, it's two metres thick.
The whole architectural concept of
Brasilia was based on lightness.
The National Congress boasts
a surface area of over 40,000 m2.
The whole site will be
over 800 m in length.
Over one thousand workmen
are building the Congress.
Mud, the whole city
was covered in mud...
Either that, or there was the heat
and that end-of-the-world dust.
It was like the Wild West: we were
fighting to build a new capital.
In those days, we dreamed of a city
with a different society,
all equal:
workmen, engineers, architects.
Brasilia spelled hope,
a starting point for progress
in Brazil, as Juscelino wanted it.
For me, he was like
a Renaissance Prince
wanting to achieve great, magnificent
deeds, nothing mediocre.
I designed the columns
for the Alvorado palace like this.
I wanted a person to be able
to stand under here and talk.
I wanted to avoid
intersecting supports
so I provided for columns
like this,
repeating themselves.
The columns
increase the impression of space.
When André Malraux came here,
he courteously said to me,
" After the Greek columns,
these are the most beautiful".
Brasilia was
an emotional experience for me.
A completely bare plateau
with buildings...
It seemed almost surreal.
You entered a jungle made only
of earth and marvellous buildings,
with architecture
unlike anything you'd ever seen.
It was one of the rare moments where
I felt as if we had not been colonised.
Our architecture was becoming
purely Brazilian.
It no longer had anything to do
with the Americans or the Europeans.
It was we, the Brazilians, who were
building our city, our capital.
When I designed the cathedral,
I didn't want the old style,
based on darkness,
reminding one of one's sins.
I wanted something different.
Access to the cathedral
is through a dark corridor,
so that when people walk
into the nave,
they feel the impact of
the contrast with light.
Their vision floats away
into space.
The idea was that the faithful,
those who believe in God,
may feel that here,
they are communicating with infinity.
When the structure is completed, I want
it to be beautiful in its own right.
I want the concrete work itself
to be beautiful,
to be a work of art.
It was in this spirit
of architectural grandeur
that I designed all the works
in Brasilia.
Like a flower on this rough
and solitary earth...
A city erected
within the solitude of a desert.
Like a never-ending message
of grace and poetry...
Rumour has it that in the sun,
the town dons a wedding dress
in which architecture
stands out in white,
floating in the wide dark spaces
of the high plateau...
in an atmosphere of
dignified monumentality...
Lucio Costa would say that Brasilia's
landscape was my architecture
because there is not one single
mound or hill in Brasilia,
so that the people there
see only the architecture.
Leaving behind the image of
a part anecdotal,
part exotic tropical Brazil,
the country is suddenly talking
a modern language,
that of the best architecture
in the modern world.
Those who built Brasilia,
who came from all over
thinking Brasilia would be
the start of a new life
left as poor as when they came.
For as soon as Brasilia was inaugurated,
the businessmen and politicians arrived.
All those who are governing
this country
are representatives of capitalism
with its trail of injustice.
It is therefore up to the youth,
inasmuch as they can,
to overthrow the trend of ever-worsening
conditions through revolution.
I still believe that Brasilia is
a phenomenon. It then epitomised
a vision of Brazil that
never came into being.
It was not the fault of Brasilia,
but of Brazil.
What happened afterwards is social,
economic and political collapse.
We've known
twenty years of military regime.
Brazil's dream was spoilt not because
the project was a bad one
but because the history of Brazil
did not match Oscar Niemeyer's dream,
my generation's dream.
The fault is not Brasilia's.
The dictatorship in line
with the cold war context,
the conflict between East and West,
between capitalism and socialism,
was one of Brazil's most violent
and bloody regimes ever.
The presidents of Bolivia, Hugo Banzer,
of Chili, Augusto Pinochet,
of Uruguay, Juan Maria Bordaberry
and Mrs Patricia Nixon representing
the United States
have come to greet President Geisel.
The Church is represented
by five cardinals.
This regime caused the death
of many people
through imprisonment,
torture, exile...
The Brazilian intellectuals played
an important part in it all
because they never adhered to
the regime. They fought it
from beginning until its collapse.
And Oscar was one of the main
characters in the process.
I have done twenty-odd sculptures,
each one an expression of protest.
This is a spear,
with a man right here.
I called it "Torture, never again."
I made another sculpture
in the honour of three workmen
murdered by the military.
On the day it was inaugurated,
the police came and ruined it.
We came back
and suggested redoing the monument,
leaving the scars.
The workmen stood guard over it
for three days. It survived !
The Party played an important part
in my life.
The most remarkable people I've met
belonged to the Party.
They were generous,
they sacrificed themselves, many died.
The last time I was summoned
by the police,
they took me into a room that had been
padded for acoustic reasons.
I then felt I could no longer stay
in the country and fled to Europe.
When I arrived in Paris,
I started to design projects.
Malraux managed to convince de Gaulle
to pass a decree
so that I could work in France
as a French architect.
I designed the headquarters
of the Communist Party.
I positioned the building like this.
Then there was the problem of
the large Working Class auditorium.
If I had designed it at ground level,
the dome would have been huge.
So I buried it.
The hall is underneath and
the dome sitcks out like this,
so it seems smaller when
seen from above.
I wanted to demonstrate
something we tend to forget,
that it is possible to achieve balance
between volume and empty space.
It was important to work in this way
on the outside,
it's a question of architectural beauty.
My Party comrades in France were
good people like those in Brazil,
always involved in life,
wanting to change the life
of the poor.
The world is made by the richest
among men.
Someone once said
that the poor were against the rich.
Today, the rich are against the poor.
When I was in Europe,
I had this political concern
to show that we aren't
gentle savages...
We are quite clever in Latin America.
We wanted to show that
we could do anything,
that civil engineering
is more ambitious in Brazil.
When I was working
on the Mondadori building,
I designed a colonnade
which was far from banal.
Each arch is of a different size.
I did one of 15m,
another of 3m, another of 5m...
It has musicality.
Next, I simply suspended
the five floors from the beams.
It is not the colonnade itself
which is important.
It is the fact that the space between
the columns gives it proportion.
We need this space, don't we?
When you look at a landscape,
both the trees
and the spaces between them
are important.
I am far away from everything,
from the things I love.
From that beautiful land
where I was born.
One day I ran away, hit the road.
Brazil is where I want to live.
There's nothing for me here,
I'm not meant to be here.
My mind is made up,
there's no stopping me.
To hell with my work.
To hell with this crappy world.
Brazil is where I want to be.
Everyone in his own home, playing
with friends, watching time go by.
I want to look at the stars,
I want to feel life.
Brazil is the place for me.
Getting together with friends
to relax and forget all my troubles,
has become a daily habit,
a must for my inner stability.
Sometimes we plunge back
into a distant, far away past
when we were still
leading a bohemian life.
Old friends reappear:
the Café Lamas,
Conde Lages road
and the man with the mandolin.
My grandfather was minister of
the Supreme Court. A very honest man.
And honest he died, without a penny.
His luxury was having mass at home.
I remember as a child,
they would kick me out of mass.
When my grandmother started on
the Ave Maria, I always had to laugh.
I was brought up in
a very religious environment.
I know what priests talk about,
and all their speeches about misery.
I saw the huge lie it all was.
Just step outside and see for yourself.
I am a rebel...
I rebel against injustice, misery.
I believe in a better world,
a realistic world,
fully aware
of how expendable we are.
But it is possible to live
and stick together,
as decent, dignified people do.
The Memorial was a project
I thoroughly enjoyed doing.
The Latin America Memorial was
designed to unite the people,
to encourage exchange,
to carry out a series of artistic,
cultural and political experiments.
Latin America
has suffered many attacks.
She was invaded, despised.
Today, these are important nations.
They can get together and react
against imperialism.
I am much in favour of the struggle
to unite the people of Latin America.
Such is the purpose of the Memorial.
It meant so much to me
that I drew that hand with blood
running down the wrist,
to represent Latin America.
Every time I was summoned by
the political police, they would ask:
"Is it true you praised Fidel Castro?"
They thought Cuba was
dangerous for Latin America.
It was very satisfying to know
that the name of Cuba is heard
all over Latin America
and that it still means
the same thing:
"the hope for a better world'".
Fidel is the hero of Latin America.
One evening he came to my office.
We talked.
I had invited some intellectuals
to come and join us.
He very much wants me
to come to Cuba.
He saw the model of the monument
against the blockade.
He wants a sculpture of it to
place in front of the US Embassy.
Dear friends...
The last time I saw him
was years ago, in Rio.
And now, what surprises me most
is that I find him looking younger
than ever...
What is our dearest wish?
That Niemeyer be eternal...
As we remember Michelangelo
and other great painters,
so we will remember him
with the greatest admiration.
Niemeyer will be eternal,
through his work
and his noble ideas.
A lonely, rainy Sunday,
alone in my office, tired of life,
of this long succession
of tears and laughter.
I listen to some old songs
and great sadness sweeps over me.
The songs are about time,
fear and old age.
Old memories come back to me...
My family, my dear parents,
my beloved friends.
I cannot help myself. I cry,
quietly, softly, with tender nostalgia.
I close my eyes and a strange
calmness sweeps over me,
as if we were going to be
all together again.
But here comes a new song,
all of a sudden:
it's good old Adolfo Alves singing.
"Rip your smile from my path,
let me by with my pain."
It is not the ups and downs of life
which bother me most.
It is the tremendous suffering
of the poor,
facing the indifferent smile of man.
or a straight, hard, inflexible line
invented by man.
I'm attracted by
a free, sensual curve,
the curve I see
in the mountains of my country,
in the winding rivers, the waves of the
sea, the body of the woman I love.
Curves make up the Universe,
the curved Universe of Einstein.
My name is Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida
de Niemeyer Soares.
They call me Oscar Niemeyer,
I don't know why...
Ribeiro and Soares
are Portuguese names.
Almeida is probably an Arab name.
Only Niemeyer is German.
It's different, so it stuck.
My name has four different origins :
black roots, maybe an Indian hidden
somewhere in the family tree.
I'm of mixed blood and I'm proud of it.
The last project I carried through
was the Niteroi Museum,
a very well located building
which pleases me greatly.
The building was easy to design
as the site was like this:
the sea surrounds it completely.
The problem was
the vertical resting point.
The idea of its architecture
came to me by doing this,
something like a flower.
I didn't want to have two blocks
on top of each other,
I wanted one single line like this,
which summarises the whole project.
Next I outlined the landscape.
I designed the building like this.
The inside walls are more rectilinear.
I designed a gallery from which
to view the fantastic scenery.
There's a ramp that comes here.
People stand there, outside.
I enjoyed creating this ramp
which invites people to enter
the beautiful architecture
of the museum.
A curious visitor will enter
with even more pleasure.
The Niteroi concept came
to me spontaneously.
The shape came into being
like a flower.
Some think
it looks like a flying saucer
because of the knoll above it.
But it's not. This is the idea.
I've designed other projects,
many of them.
There are about 500 projects here
which required no effort at all.
It was sheer pleasure working
at my drawing board, imagining.
Architecture was
a natural choice for me.
Up to the age of twenty, I wasn't
thinking of anything in particular.
My life was easy-going until I got
married and needed to earn a living.
Architecture is the path I chose.
I bore in mind Le Corbusier's phrase:
"Architecture is invention."
It must be different, innovative,
triggering astonishment and surprise.
When I started working,
architecture was rigid,
full of right angles.
There was nothing like the new
technology of reinforced concrete.
There was so much scope for
an architect's imagination.
So my first concern was to understand
the existence of the curve,
its importance and the fact that
when you need to cover a wide span,
the curve is a natural solution.
This first phase was
a liberation in terms of form:
the use of curves in architecture.
That's when I designed
the Pampulha Church in 1940.
I used curves all over the church.
In the same spirit, the ballroom and the
yacht club were built around the lake.
The ballroom restaurant had
an awning made of curves.
I believed the curve was essential.
Juscelino Kubitschek
had been elected mayor.
He wanted me to design
a whole district, something different
located near a dam at Belo Horizonte,
something fantastic.
He even specified: "I want
the casino project by tomorrow."
It was a challenge,
as you can imagine.
But I was young, so I rose to meet it.
I returned to my hotel.
I worked all night and finished it.
And that's how my career
as an architect took off.
Sometimes one produces something with
a certain originality, as in poetry.
Not something inflexible, a problem to
be solved with a square and a ruler,
rather something which comes unbidden,
like a dream.
With my very first project,
I realised I had to call upon artists,
I had to revive the integration of
plastic arts started at the Renaissance.
The church of Pampulha
remained unused for six years,
because it did not suit
the religious authorities.
It should have been made in the style
of the old Minas Gerais churches.
They did not understand that it is not
a question of ancient or modern.
Architecture is either good or bad.
My concern is for architecture
to fit in with the ground,
so that it does not change
the slope of the plot.
My house at Canoas
is a good example.
The ground was like this.
I placed the living room here
and the bedrooms downstairs,
I didn't touch the ground.
The roof came afterwards in this shape
and there's a wall here,
the slab fits in like this
and here is a rock that I left untouched
and put the pool here.
The shape of the swimming pool
fits in the area naturally.
The trees have grown
to complete the composition.
Architecture is full of such secrets.
It must fit in perfectly,
that's all there is to it.
I love coming back to see the houses
I used to live in,
and remember how beautiful they were
and the lifestyle I enjoyed there.
They are like people worn over time,
more fragile each day.
A house is important,
it's the place we live in,
the place where
we suffer, laugh and cry.
Those feelings make me want to return
to remember times past.
We used to go and walk
in the Botanical Gardens.
I enjoyed strolling along
the gravel paths
to see the exuberant
green tropical growth,
to stop at each plant, read
its scientific name, so complicated.
Anita followed me contentedly,
Anna Maria ran joyfully ahead.
How beautiful nature is!
It grows and spreads.
It maintains a structural logic
within each of its secrets.
It's like Capoéra.
This dance was originally aggressive,
for fighting.
- It's beautiful.
In the past, they used their fists.
Now it's done with swords.
The Japanese take this seriously.
Nowadays, it has lost its meaning.
I remember this place very well.
Such vivid memories. I used to come
here as a child and after I got married.
I would draw the trees, seeking to
capture the spirit of each plant.
A drawing that would become
architecture later on...
I enjoyed those moments.
Brazilian civilisation is a result
of the European civilisation
introduced here by the Portuguese.
They settled in Brazil,
locking it into a straitjacket,
especially in cultural terms,
where it was at a disadvantage.
Therefore, Oscar's style, his creativity,
the new shapes he conceived,
have contributed to form
our own vision of modernity,
our modern Brazil.
There is no doubt that Oscar, using
Le Corbusier's work as a starting point,
created his own language,
which transformed modern
architecture of the twentieth century.
I am from Rio, from the beaches,
the mountains... Rio has it all.
Beautiful women stroll by,
everyone enjoys.
You fight when you have to.
You suffer when you have to.
You laugh a little...
That's the way of the Carioca.
I remember one day
Le Corbusier telling me:
"You've got Rio's mountains
in your eyes."
But that's not so, there's more.
There are women too...
No, my architecture is not what
Le Corbusier said it was.
It's more like something André Malraux
used to say about having
his own personal museum
where he kept all he had seen
and loved in his life.
I always felt I was inhabited
by someone more extreme than myself.
This 'other person' is full of mischief.
It is he who has the craziest ideas.
Sometimes he wants to do things
but I have to hold back.
He is my driving force in architecture.
He loves curves, women
and the most fascinating things.
I believe
that is what life is all about.
I'm an animal like any other,
I've got a one track mind...
Without women, life's not worth living.
It's an unavoidable fact.
Woman is man's companion,
she is indispensable.
She is the incarnation of humanity,
the queen of mankind, she's fantastic.
I often approach a project without
touching a pencil or felt pen.
I hold everything in my mind.
I give free rein to my imagination
to seek out solutions. Sometimes,
the solutions come through drawing.
The basis of architecture
is drawing and reflection.
In Algeria, I remember
working on a mosque.
I was at home, in bed.
I could not sleep for thinking about it.
I was thinking of the shape,
of the columns.
I got up and drew it.
Here's how the mosque
appeared to me.
I did the columns like this,
another like that, and another
and so on.
I thought it should stand
by the sea, on the coast.
The project took form without
the use of a pencil, just by thinking.
The mosque looked good.
I remember when I showed the model
to Boumédiene, the President of Algeria,
he said to me:
"Oscar, this mosque is revolutionary"
and I answered:
"There's no stopping a revolution."
When I reach a solution, with
well-defined sketches, I write a text.
The text is an attempt
to explain my architecture.
If I cannot explain it,
I go back to my drawing board
because it means
something is missing.
It is when an idea
springs forth that
one perceives what architectural
creativity is all about.
It is the moment of satisfaction
at having found the right solution,
something different,
something that can be built.
That is the architect's dream.
Drawing is a marvellous thing.
When a child draws,
it is always beautiful,
because for him
it is an act of freedom.
A child has no preconceived ideas,
only spontaneity.
Freedom and drawing
are fundamental in life.
As the palace doors open,
the crowds swarm into the gardens.
Workers, women, young and old shake
hands with the head of government,
they embrace him
to show their support...
Juscelino was an optimist by nature
and in his vision of the world,
he was open to innovation,
full of enthusiasm.
He played an instrumental role
in the intensification of
Brazil's industrialisation.
When he became
President of the Republic,
he immediately thought of Oscar
for his partner
to help him realize his crazy dream
of building a new capital : Brasilia.
Juscelino came to see me at home,
we went to town together,
that's where he said to me:
"Listen I want to build a new capital,
it will take up where Pampulha left off.
I need you."
That was his favourite work,
he dreamed of building a new capital.
He wanted the capital
to be further inland
to develop the heart of the country.
It worked.
It springs from the primal gesture
of choosing a site
or taking possession of it.
Two main axes
cross at right angles.
In other words,
the Sign of the Cross.
Brasilia is not an utopia,
but it is the expression
of a different, more modern Brazil,
which rejects its colonial past.
One of the most
extraordinary aspects
of the geographical location
of Brasilia
is the way
of the great Brazilian West.
In a sense,
has turned its back on Europe,
and is embracing
its American destiny.
It is the 'Wild West'.
The West.
Each time I went to Brasilia by car,
I would pass the time
by watching the clouds.
They suggest
SO many unexpected things.
At times,
huge and mysterious cathedrals,
then fearsome warriors, or Roman
chariots cutting across the skies,
or some strange monster
carried off on mischievous winds...
The captains leading the toughest,
yet most pacific, Brazilian battle
draw the layout
for the pathways of life.
Meanwhile,
the heavy machines of this war
open, conquer and harness
the wide spaces.
25,000 horsepower will be produced
by a power station 13 km from the city.
In Brasilia, a lake will be formed
that is larger than Guanabara Bay.
Brasilia was quite an adventure !
When I first came to Brasilia,
it seemed like the end of the world,
so far from everything.
There were no roads, nothing...
and we had only three and a half years
to build a capital city !
I didn't go to Brasilia
with architects alone.
I went there with four friends
who had no specific jobs,
they were all in dire straits and
I felt this was the right time to help.
In the beginning,
there were no creature comforts.
We lived with the workmen
in rough dwellings.
All we had was a bed
and a chest.
We worked in a hut with a tin roof.
It was there that we designed
all the palaces of Brasilia.
Architects Lucio Costa
and Oscar Niemeyer.
The first is in charge of town planning,
the other, of architectural works.
Both are technician-cum-artists,
rightly admired the world over.
They use lines, volumes,
colours and space to compose
the Brasilia symphony.
Oscar contributed enormously
to this vision
and modernized
the image of Brazil abroad.
Never had contemporary architecture
had the opportunity
to build a work of such scope.
Modern architectural achievements
had always taken place
within an existing framework.
Now, suddenly an architect
has been commissioned to construct
the fundamental edifices,
the major buildings of a new capital.
On the Square of the Three Powers, in
the presence of President Kubitschek,
the public attends the laying
of the first metallic structure.
With each passing month, the panorama
of Brasilia is transformed.
The feverish pace of building
speeds up,
as the inhabitants move in.
Classrooms are not fully equipped,
yet lessons have already started,
for culture cannot wait.
One sturdy Brazilian
inaugurates the maternity ward.
Work does not stop at night.
There is too much
to be accomplished.
We had no time.
We would produce a drawing
and the following day,
Joachim Cardoso would start
on the calculations.
Building would start before structural
calculations were completed.
This was done
as the works progressed.
The main building is the Congress.
It looks simple. In three lines,
you get an idea of its architecture.
When the structure was finished,
the architecture was already there,
but it had been hard going.
I remember Cardosa
calling one day to say:
"Oscar, I've discovered the tangent
to create the effect that the dome
is hardly touching the ground."
Then, despite the rush, we discussed
the thickness of the slab.
For instance,
this slab is 40 cm thick,
and here, it's two metres thick.
The whole architectural concept of
Brasilia was based on lightness.
The National Congress boasts
a surface area of over 40,000 m2.
The whole site will be
over 800 m in length.
Over one thousand workmen
are building the Congress.
Mud, the whole city
was covered in mud...
Either that, or there was the heat
and that end-of-the-world dust.
It was like the Wild West: we were
fighting to build a new capital.
In those days, we dreamed of a city
with a different society,
all equal:
workmen, engineers, architects.
Brasilia spelled hope,
a starting point for progress
in Brazil, as Juscelino wanted it.
For me, he was like
a Renaissance Prince
wanting to achieve great, magnificent
deeds, nothing mediocre.
I designed the columns
for the Alvorado palace like this.
I wanted a person to be able
to stand under here and talk.
I wanted to avoid
intersecting supports
so I provided for columns
like this,
repeating themselves.
The columns
increase the impression of space.
When André Malraux came here,
he courteously said to me,
" After the Greek columns,
these are the most beautiful".
Brasilia was
an emotional experience for me.
A completely bare plateau
with buildings...
It seemed almost surreal.
You entered a jungle made only
of earth and marvellous buildings,
with architecture
unlike anything you'd ever seen.
It was one of the rare moments where
I felt as if we had not been colonised.
Our architecture was becoming
purely Brazilian.
It no longer had anything to do
with the Americans or the Europeans.
It was we, the Brazilians, who were
building our city, our capital.
When I designed the cathedral,
I didn't want the old style,
based on darkness,
reminding one of one's sins.
I wanted something different.
Access to the cathedral
is through a dark corridor,
so that when people walk
into the nave,
they feel the impact of
the contrast with light.
Their vision floats away
into space.
The idea was that the faithful,
those who believe in God,
may feel that here,
they are communicating with infinity.
When the structure is completed, I want
it to be beautiful in its own right.
I want the concrete work itself
to be beautiful,
to be a work of art.
It was in this spirit
of architectural grandeur
that I designed all the works
in Brasilia.
Like a flower on this rough
and solitary earth...
A city erected
within the solitude of a desert.
Like a never-ending message
of grace and poetry...
Rumour has it that in the sun,
the town dons a wedding dress
in which architecture
stands out in white,
floating in the wide dark spaces
of the high plateau...
in an atmosphere of
dignified monumentality...
Lucio Costa would say that Brasilia's
landscape was my architecture
because there is not one single
mound or hill in Brasilia,
so that the people there
see only the architecture.
Leaving behind the image of
a part anecdotal,
part exotic tropical Brazil,
the country is suddenly talking
a modern language,
that of the best architecture
in the modern world.
Those who built Brasilia,
who came from all over
thinking Brasilia would be
the start of a new life
left as poor as when they came.
For as soon as Brasilia was inaugurated,
the businessmen and politicians arrived.
All those who are governing
this country
are representatives of capitalism
with its trail of injustice.
It is therefore up to the youth,
inasmuch as they can,
to overthrow the trend of ever-worsening
conditions through revolution.
I still believe that Brasilia is
a phenomenon. It then epitomised
a vision of Brazil that
never came into being.
It was not the fault of Brasilia,
but of Brazil.
What happened afterwards is social,
economic and political collapse.
We've known
twenty years of military regime.
Brazil's dream was spoilt not because
the project was a bad one
but because the history of Brazil
did not match Oscar Niemeyer's dream,
my generation's dream.
The fault is not Brasilia's.
The dictatorship in line
with the cold war context,
the conflict between East and West,
between capitalism and socialism,
was one of Brazil's most violent
and bloody regimes ever.
The presidents of Bolivia, Hugo Banzer,
of Chili, Augusto Pinochet,
of Uruguay, Juan Maria Bordaberry
and Mrs Patricia Nixon representing
the United States
have come to greet President Geisel.
The Church is represented
by five cardinals.
This regime caused the death
of many people
through imprisonment,
torture, exile...
The Brazilian intellectuals played
an important part in it all
because they never adhered to
the regime. They fought it
from beginning until its collapse.
And Oscar was one of the main
characters in the process.
I have done twenty-odd sculptures,
each one an expression of protest.
This is a spear,
with a man right here.
I called it "Torture, never again."
I made another sculpture
in the honour of three workmen
murdered by the military.
On the day it was inaugurated,
the police came and ruined it.
We came back
and suggested redoing the monument,
leaving the scars.
The workmen stood guard over it
for three days. It survived !
The Party played an important part
in my life.
The most remarkable people I've met
belonged to the Party.
They were generous,
they sacrificed themselves, many died.
The last time I was summoned
by the police,
they took me into a room that had been
padded for acoustic reasons.
I then felt I could no longer stay
in the country and fled to Europe.
When I arrived in Paris,
I started to design projects.
Malraux managed to convince de Gaulle
to pass a decree
so that I could work in France
as a French architect.
I designed the headquarters
of the Communist Party.
I positioned the building like this.
Then there was the problem of
the large Working Class auditorium.
If I had designed it at ground level,
the dome would have been huge.
So I buried it.
The hall is underneath and
the dome sitcks out like this,
so it seems smaller when
seen from above.
I wanted to demonstrate
something we tend to forget,
that it is possible to achieve balance
between volume and empty space.
It was important to work in this way
on the outside,
it's a question of architectural beauty.
My Party comrades in France were
good people like those in Brazil,
always involved in life,
wanting to change the life
of the poor.
The world is made by the richest
among men.
Someone once said
that the poor were against the rich.
Today, the rich are against the poor.
When I was in Europe,
I had this political concern
to show that we aren't
gentle savages...
We are quite clever in Latin America.
We wanted to show that
we could do anything,
that civil engineering
is more ambitious in Brazil.
When I was working
on the Mondadori building,
I designed a colonnade
which was far from banal.
Each arch is of a different size.
I did one of 15m,
another of 3m, another of 5m...
It has musicality.
Next, I simply suspended
the five floors from the beams.
It is not the colonnade itself
which is important.
It is the fact that the space between
the columns gives it proportion.
We need this space, don't we?
When you look at a landscape,
both the trees
and the spaces between them
are important.
I am far away from everything,
from the things I love.
From that beautiful land
where I was born.
One day I ran away, hit the road.
Brazil is where I want to live.
There's nothing for me here,
I'm not meant to be here.
My mind is made up,
there's no stopping me.
To hell with my work.
To hell with this crappy world.
Brazil is where I want to be.
Everyone in his own home, playing
with friends, watching time go by.
I want to look at the stars,
I want to feel life.
Brazil is the place for me.
Getting together with friends
to relax and forget all my troubles,
has become a daily habit,
a must for my inner stability.
Sometimes we plunge back
into a distant, far away past
when we were still
leading a bohemian life.
Old friends reappear:
the Café Lamas,
Conde Lages road
and the man with the mandolin.
My grandfather was minister of
the Supreme Court. A very honest man.
And honest he died, without a penny.
His luxury was having mass at home.
I remember as a child,
they would kick me out of mass.
When my grandmother started on
the Ave Maria, I always had to laugh.
I was brought up in
a very religious environment.
I know what priests talk about,
and all their speeches about misery.
I saw the huge lie it all was.
Just step outside and see for yourself.
I am a rebel...
I rebel against injustice, misery.
I believe in a better world,
a realistic world,
fully aware
of how expendable we are.
But it is possible to live
and stick together,
as decent, dignified people do.
The Memorial was a project
I thoroughly enjoyed doing.
The Latin America Memorial was
designed to unite the people,
to encourage exchange,
to carry out a series of artistic,
cultural and political experiments.
Latin America
has suffered many attacks.
She was invaded, despised.
Today, these are important nations.
They can get together and react
against imperialism.
I am much in favour of the struggle
to unite the people of Latin America.
Such is the purpose of the Memorial.
It meant so much to me
that I drew that hand with blood
running down the wrist,
to represent Latin America.
Every time I was summoned by
the political police, they would ask:
"Is it true you praised Fidel Castro?"
They thought Cuba was
dangerous for Latin America.
It was very satisfying to know
that the name of Cuba is heard
all over Latin America
and that it still means
the same thing:
"the hope for a better world'".
Fidel is the hero of Latin America.
One evening he came to my office.
We talked.
I had invited some intellectuals
to come and join us.
He very much wants me
to come to Cuba.
He saw the model of the monument
against the blockade.
He wants a sculpture of it to
place in front of the US Embassy.
Dear friends...
The last time I saw him
was years ago, in Rio.
And now, what surprises me most
is that I find him looking younger
than ever...
What is our dearest wish?
That Niemeyer be eternal...
As we remember Michelangelo
and other great painters,
so we will remember him
with the greatest admiration.
Niemeyer will be eternal,
through his work
and his noble ideas.
A lonely, rainy Sunday,
alone in my office, tired of life,
of this long succession
of tears and laughter.
I listen to some old songs
and great sadness sweeps over me.
The songs are about time,
fear and old age.
Old memories come back to me...
My family, my dear parents,
my beloved friends.
I cannot help myself. I cry,
quietly, softly, with tender nostalgia.
I close my eyes and a strange
calmness sweeps over me,
as if we were going to be
all together again.
But here comes a new song,
all of a sudden:
it's good old Adolfo Alves singing.
"Rip your smile from my path,
let me by with my pain."
It is not the ups and downs of life
which bother me most.
It is the tremendous suffering
of the poor,
facing the indifferent smile of man.