Niemeyer

Juscelino Kubitschek was the man who as president of Brazil built Brasilia in the 1960s – I´m sure you all remember that the Brazilians carved a new capital out of concrete in the jungle. Oscar Niemeyer, who´s still alive aged 101, was its main architect.

Before becoming president Juscelino Kubitschek (who as far as I can tell was one of Brazilian politics´ few undisputed good guys) was mayor of Belo Horizonte and was already working with Niemeyer. Beo Horizonte therefore has the largest collection of Niemeyer´s buildings from the 1940s and 1950s.

The most famous of these is the Church of St Francis (above right), a collaboration with with Brazils most famous artist – Portinari, who did the (traditional blue portuguese) tiles. The building was finished in 1943 but unfortunately the Catholic Church didn’t like the fact that Portinari had portrayed sinners sinning in his tiles and they didn’t agree to consecrate it until the late 50s.

The residential building just called ´Edificio Niemeyer´ is not so important, but its nice to look at, and is one of the main symbols of Belo Horizonte. I took the pictures above yesterday, while wandering up and down before my first Portuguese lesson (which I missed, having got a bit mixed up with the 24hour clock and the difference between 16 and 17 in Portuguese).

Unfortunately Danilo (who is the type of flashy queen who would contemplateplate moving to a modernist masterpeice in the centre of the city) tells me that the Edifico Niemeyer is quite tricky to live in as the rooms aren´t that big and all the walls are curved.