Chair of Foster + Partners hails “magic” of Brazilian archtiect’s work
Lord Norman Foster, chair of architect Foster + Partners, has paid tribute to the “inspirational” Oscar Niemeyer, who died yesterday.
Seminal Brazilian architect Niemeyer died yesterday aged 104. He had reportedly been battling kidney and stomach problems over the past month.
In a tribute to the man who designed Brazil’s capital city Basilia, posted on Foster + Partners’ website, Foster said: “For architects schooled in the mainstream modern movement, he stood accepted wisdom on its head.”
He said Brasilia was “daring, sculptural, colourful and free”. “Each of its fluidly-composed pieces seems to stand, like a dancer, on its points frozen in a moment of absolute balance,” he added. “But what I most enjoy in his work is that even the individual building is very much about the public promenade, the public dimension.”
Foster said that even now Niemeyer’s work had the capacity to startle architects. He described Niemeyer’s Art Museum at Niteroi as “absolutely magic”.
“In the end his architecture is his ultimate legacy. Like the man himself, it is eternally youthful – he leaves us with a source of delight and inspiration for many generations to come,” he said.
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