Jonathan Glancey interviews architect Oscar Niemeyer. This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday August 01 2007 on p23 of the Arts section. It was last updated at 12:34 on August 03 2007.
'I pick up my pen. A building appears'
He is arguably the world's greatest living architect. As Oscar Niemeyer prepares to turn 100, he grants Jonathan Glancey a rare interview - and looks back on an extraordinary career.
He is arguably the world's greatest living architect. As Oscar Niemeyer prepares to turn 100, he grants Jonathan Glancey a rare interview - and looks back on an extraordinary career.
'Fidel Castro sent me that box of Havana cigars last week," says Oscar Niemeyer, looking dapper in blue linen trousers and black shirt with silver buttons. Holding court in his penthouse studio in Rio de Janeiro, this giant among architects continues: "And those boxing gloves next to it are signed by the Cuban world champion. One time, Fidel came to see me here, late at night, and the elevator broke down. It's very old. So I rang a neighbour and asked if my friend could come through his apartment. He was in his pyjamas and, I think, a little surprised to watch four giant bodyguards and then Castro walking past his bedroom. Fidel gave him a cigar."
Not so long ago, the Cuban president said: "Niemeyer and I are the last communists on this planet."
A few weeks ago, Hugo Chavez, the radical president of Venezuela, came to spend time with Niemeyer. Famous architects drop by on any pretext; none, though, is more famous than Niemeyer himself.
"Walter Gropius came to see me at my house at Canoas above Rio. I designed it in a sequence of natural curves to flow in and out of the existing landscape. He said, it's beautiful, but it can't be mass-produced. As if I had intended such a thing! What an idiot."
"I don't like to talk about architecture," he says. "Life is too short for that, a breath, that's all - it matters far more than buildings." So we talk about life, the universe, books, politics - until, as I thought he might, Niemeyer inches towards architecture.
In 1964, the military seized power in Brazil. Niemeyer chose exile for many years, mostly in Paris. Here, aside from forming close friendships with Jean-Paul Sartre and André Malraux, author, adventurer, Résistance hero and France's first minister of culture, Niemeyer designed beautiful buildings in western Europe and north Africa.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/aug/01/architecture
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