|
The Ecole des Beaux Arts and Bauhaus in Europe have not been the only source of inspiration for architectural design in America. Perhaps the grandest of visions, one that always sets the architects of America to dreaming, has been that of Oscar Niemeyer, manifest in his work in Argentina and Brazil.
Niemeyer, in collaboration with Lucio Costa, was commissioned to design an entire city from scratch, Brasilia, to be the capital city of Brazil. The project was to be their life work, and is still not complete. Despite this, the concept remains vibrantly alive. Many of the lessons Niemeyer and Costa worked through in the Fifties nearly half a century later are still informing urban structural design in America.
Niemeyer and Costa made their first mark in 1937 with the design of the Ministry of Education building in Rio de Janeiro. Working with architectural icon, Le Corbusier, as project consultants, they elaborated what became known as "brise soleil", sun screens on building facades that appreciably enhanced the aesthetic element yet were fully functional. "Sun, space, verdure" was a Corbusian axiom even then, and this building integrated the three in a profoundly successful design.
In later years, Niemeyer again collaborated with Le Corbusier in the design of the United Nations Headquarters building in New York City.
The "de novo" city is an architect's dream; to design an entire city. In the aftermath of the second world war, opportunities seemed to abound, for entire cities had virtually been laid waste. Coventry was an example. Unfortunately, architectural vision can be blurred by public myopia and bureaucratic conservatism, with the result that the vision is lost to tract houses and banal cubes of offices. Brasilia was different; and the architectural world watched.
Niemeyer and Costa had seen the congestion of New York City traffic, streets meant for pedestrians choked with cars and trucks, and they had seen the labyrinthine chaos of Los Angeles' freeways. In the early Fifties, owning and driving a car, the bigger the better, was as culturally valued in North America as owning one's own home, and as feasible.
Niemeyer and Costa decided that Brasilia would, foremost, be designed for cars. The Niemeyer/Costa planning in that regard remains required reading for fledgling traffic engineers throughout urban America.
In pure design, the architects opted for contrasts on a monumental scale; not surprising, considering the first structures in the phased construction program were government and other public buildings. Each building unfolded as part of a holistic design. That housing Congress was two twin towers, variations on Miesian principles but adjacently balanced by a magnificent lower bowl echoing Nervi's designs, in which to house Brazil's Chamber of Deputies.
Balance and purity of line – the city from the air would be an architectural tapestry; from the ground an accessible, functional and aesthetically awesome monument to purity of form in a durable human context.
Brasilia was envisioned to incorporate all that was new in materials and design with the purpose, power and authority of nationhood, and do so in a living environment for more than a million people.
Among the first buildings constructed was the Alvorada Palace. Here, concrete loggia, curved slimly at the top, broadening strongly at the bottom to support the structure, are significant features. Adjacent to the Palace, smaller yet not dwarfed, is a shell-shaped chapel that swoops to a slim cross atop a pinnacle of concrete; fragility and strength juxtaposed in breathtaking contrast, yet still integrated one into the other. Structural lines flow smoothly, without jarring the eye. Niemeyer and Costa envisioned this across the city.
For an architect, Niemeyer had the dream commission. He did not disappoint. Architects of America have learned from him the vital need to integrate design to environment in a manner which does not merely complement what's already there, but takes what's already there to new heights of expressions. That, indeed, is Oscar Niemeyer's legacy to America.
|
| |
