Curves of Time: Oscar Niemeyer Memoirs [Hardcover]

Oscar Neimeyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 2000

Brazilian Oscar Niemeyer (b. 1907) is one of the architectural masters of the 20th century and a pioneer of Modernism. Known primarily for his collaboration with Le Corbusier and his buildings at Brasilia and Pampulha, Niemeyer designed hundreds of striking and visionary buildings and masterplans during his six-decade career. In this biography he reveals how his philosophy and his many passions - his large family, many friends, the sensuous land and blue sky of Brazil, women, communism, art and literature - have formed the heart of his life and are the key to his architecture.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Some people live to work while others work to live, and based on this charmingly relaxed and meandering memoir, it would seem that Oscar Niemeyer definitely falls in the latter category. Not to say that he doesn't spend considerable time here musing on his crowning achievement, Brasilia. It's just that he does so the same way that he recounts everything else here, dispensing with details and strict linearity (much like in his built work), shifting casually between different points in time (including the very days he is working on what became this book), and focusing on the human relationships and friendships behind a project (such as with Lucia Costa, his mentor and the so-called "father of Brazilian modernism," as well as Le Corbusier) than their technical, administrative, and budgetary minutiae.

Niemeyer designed the vast majority of the municipal buildings for Brasilia, the city built "overnight" in the 1960s out of the desolate interior of his native Brazil to serve as the country's new capital, and the sensuously curvy modernism of its skyline has effectively become his stylistic signature, even if he didn't anticipate the vast and ugly exurban sprawl that has since come to ring the city's dazzling axial core.

So much more than a professional memoir, this is really the unhurried, and endearingly nostalgic, reminiscences of a passionate man motivated not so much by professional or financial gain (in fact, he claims, he worked for years on Brasilia at the base rate of an average civil servant) as by a profound, even melancholic, love for his beautiful and troubled country; the ongoing struggle for relief from political and economic oppression around the world; and, above all, a vast web of lifelong friendships. To wit, there are far more photos here of Niemeyer with his Brazilian cronies (many long dead, he laments openly) than there are of his projects (one reason why those not already somewhat familiar with his output may want to start elsewhere), and far more recounted about their prank-filled road trips between Rio and Brasilia than about the work that actually went on there. Those tales, and all of Niemeyer's anecdotes and gentle, quirky musings here, possess a kind of melancholic glow, evocative of samba, wine, and the "uninhibited" women of his homeland.

He reminisces lyrically about Paris, Italy, and Algiers, where he lived and designed projects for much of the period during which Brazil was under a repressive dictatorship. But even amid his delight in world travel, his homesickness is apparent. "I want to watch the stars / I want to feel life / And be back in Brazil / That's where I want to live," goes a characteristically openhearted poem he wrote in those years of near-forced exile. It is the land and the people of his beloved Brazil, much more so than any or all of what he designed there or elsewhere, that make up the soul of this unconventional and thoroughly lovely memoir from one of the 20th century's most talented, and passionate, architects. --Timothy Murphy

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Portugese

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Phaidon Press; 1st Edition in this form edition (January 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0714840076
• ISBN-13: 978-0714840079
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #557,321 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Niemeyer looks back, September 28, 2002

By 

El Cholo Invisivel (Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Curves of Time: Oscar Niemeyer Memoirs (Hardcover)

Niemeyer looks back in a non-linear fashion at his life, which spans most of the 20th century. He talks about his friendships with presidents, musicians, radicals, architects and drunkards, stressing the things that made them most human. A good read, not only for architecture fans but for anyone who is interested in Brazil. The translator includes detailed footnotes explaining the names, places and buildings. I found it surprising to find out what a Bohemian Niemeyer is and the delight he has in telling stories of adventures with his pals in Brazilian brothels. He mentions Henry Miller as one of his favorite writers and at times the influence is evident (although Niemeyer is too classy to go into sordid detail). A poignant read by an atheist who knows the end is near and is admitedly afraid of death, who values family and friendship above art.

4.0 out of 5 stars illustrate & exclaim..., April 27, 2009

By 

David Cuthbert (JAMAICA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Curves of Time: The Memoirs of Oscar Niemeyer (Paperback)

An unceremonious autobiography that aims to capture the enthusiasm for life, the Brazilian landscape, many loves and friendships of master architect Oscar Neimeyer. More than a chronological documentation of his life, it reads as an emotional reflection of the social and political influences that shaped his thoughts and his works. Reissued on the centenary of his birth, it paints a personal and moreover a historical glimpse of his contribution to modern architecture. The informality of the book aside - original sketches by the architect adorn the pages, seeking to illustrate and exclaim where the story or perhaps his memory falls short.