Times South Africa – "Brazilian star architect Oscar Niemeyer turn 104"

“Brazil’s star architect Oscar Niemeyer is set to turn 104 on Thursday, and he still has no plans to retire.

Brazilian media report he is not expected to hold large parties but will probably celebrate, as usual, with friends and loved ones at his home and office on Copacabana beach, in his native Rio de Janeiro.

The man who was awarded the 1988 Pritzker Prize continues to devote his afternoons to working on new projects, including a theatre with a capacity for 2 500 people on Flamengo Park, near Rio’s Sugarloaf Mountain.

“I came up with a solution that is capable of prompting surprise and attracting the public: a magnificent dome which would be built before the Sugarloaf Mountain,” he recently wrote.

Among other projects, Niemeyer continues to publish the magazine Nosso Caminho (Our Way), which deals with politics, philosophy and architecture. He publishes it along with his second wife Vera Lucia, 66.

Also Thursday, the new headquarters of Brazil’s election authority, based on a project by Niemeyer, are set to be inaugurated in Brasilia. The futuristic semicircular building cost around 175 million dollars, and it is part of Niemeyer’s design for the Brazilian capital.”

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(Source: Time Live South Africa via Nicolas Marier)

(Photo: Front page: Eloy Alonso / Reuters. This page: Archdaily)