Inspired by curves, Niemeyer designed his own niche

Documentary on a pioneer of modern architecture plays at Brazilian embassy.

ISLAMABAD:

Most Pakistanis aren’t familiar with architecture. And whenever the subject does come up, the best examples are only of the past, such as the Mughal architecture.

Little known to us are the contemporary architects. One such example is famous Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, the subject of Fabio Maciel’s documentary Life’s a breath, which was shown at the Brazilian embassy on Friday during an exhibition of Brazilian documentaries.

The documentary opens with a palatial window overlooking the bright blue sea. Niemeyer narrates a dream he had long ago about Brazil being invaded by outsiders. The next shot is of the man himself, smoking a cigar with a pensive look at the age of 104. Niemeyer wittily narrates the story of his life, beginning from Rio de Janeiro on December 15, 1907.

As a man who paved way for future contemporary architects by striving to move away from colonial architecture, Niemeyer cut across straight lines and created “the curve” while everyone else sought tall, thick pillars and pretty windows just for the dressing.

“I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, which are hard and inflexible, created by man. I am attracted to free-flowing, sensual curves, the curves that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuousness of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean, and on the body of the beloved woman,” he said in the documentary.

Young and filled with ideas but no money to spare, Niemeyer decided to work without pay in the architecture studio of Lúcio Costa, Gregori Warchavchik and Carlos Leão, simply to learn and grow. In 1937, Niemeyer “built a military clinic ”, but his architecture really began in Pampulha.

Minas Gerais Pampulha was a revolutionary church for Brazil, holding true to the usage of curves and free space, which Niemeyer has become so famous for.

The documentary shifts to 1936, in which Lúcio Costa was appointed by Education Minister Gustavo Capanema as the architect of the new headquarters for the Ministry of Education and Public Health in Rio de Janeiro.

In 1947, his worldwide recognition was confirmed when Niemeyer travelled to the US to be part of the team working on the design for the headquarters of the United Nations. Niemeyer’s “scheme 32” was approved by the Board of Design, but he eventually gave in to pressure from Le Corbusier, and together they submitted project 23/32 (developed with Bodiansky and Weissmann), which combined elements from Niemeyer’s and Le Corbusier’s designs.

During the military rule in 1964, Niemeyer was sent in exile. As the documentary shifted from black and white images of the dictatorship era to present-day Niemeyer with images of his works in France and Algeria, Niemeyer reads out a poem from a book he wrote during his exile. “I don’t want to be anywhere but Brazil.”

As the documentary features almost all of his works and structures, one begins to notice the commonalities in his buildings – the Alovodra column, the painted murals on the walls and use of mosaic and curves that give each building a feeling of movement, while arches in each structure seem light and sometimes disjointed to give the look of cloud formations.

Although tighter editing would have helped, the director probably chose not to leave any stone unturned. Plus even though he is more than a century old, the man maintains his wit, as his final comment in the film asserts. Asked what keeps him going in life, he candidly answered, “Woman is the most important thing in life. Everything else is a joke!”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 15^th, 2012.