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It is not the right angle that attracts me, nor the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. What attracts me is the free and sensual curve - the curve that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuous course of its rivers, in the body of the beloved woman.

Oscar Niemeyer

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Oscar Niemeyer
Age: 104 †
Born: 1907
Born: December 15
Died: 2012
Died: December 5
Architect
Designer
Politician
University Teacher
Urban Planner
Writer
Rio
Oscar Niemeyer Soares
Ribeiro de Almeida Soares
Oscar Niemeyer Soares Filho
Oscard Niemeyer
Filho
Oscar Niemeyer Soares
Oskar Nimeĭer
Hard
Courses
Mountains
Men
Course
Beloved
Sinuous
Free
Straight
Inflexible
Woman
Rivers
Curve
Body
Mountain
Attracts
Find
Created
Sensual
Country
Line
Curves
Right
Lines
Angle

More quotes by Oscar Niemeyer

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I pick up my pen. It flows. A building appears. There it is. There is nothing more to say.
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My ambition has always been to reduce a building's support to a minimum. The more we diminish supporting structures, the more audacious and important the architecture is. That has been my life's work.
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Life is more important than architecture.
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I am a Brazilian before I am an architect. I cannot separate the two.
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Architecture will always express the technical and social progress of the country in which it is carried out. If we wish to give it the human content that it lacks, we must participate in the political struggle.
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Life is very fleeting. It’s important to be gentle and optimistic. We look behind and think what we’ve done in this life has been good. It was simple it was modest. Everyone creates their own story and moves on. That’s it. I don’t feel particularly important. What we create is not important. We’re very insignificant.
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For me beauty is valued more than anything - the beauty that is manifest in a curved line or in an act of creativity.
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Humanity needs dreams to be able to survive the miseries of daily existence, even if only for an instant.
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It is not with architecture that one can disseminate any political ideology.
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The challenge of a cathedral is very good for architectural inventiveness.
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Sometimes I lose a whole morning waiting on journalists and other people who look for me. But I always find some time for reading, talking to my friends and feeling what is happening in this world.
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The rule is the worst thing. You just want to break it.
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I enter my studio at 9 a.m. I have lunch here, I return right away to my work and I go out to dinner at 8 p.m. My daily tasks vary very much.
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We need to feel that life is important we need that fantasy so we can live a little better.
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When I was very little my mother said I used to draw in the air with my fingers. I needed a pencil. Once I could hold one, I have drawn every day since.
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Surprise is key in all art.
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My work is not about form follows function, but form follows beauty or, even better, form follows feminine.
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When students leave college, they are like children who know nothing about the problems of life, and don't have a political stance.
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There is no reason to design buildings that are more basic and rectilinear, because with concrete you can cover almost any space.
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Here, then, is what I wanted to tell you of my architecture. I created it with courage and idealism, but also with an awareness of the fact that what is important is life, friends and attempting to make this unjust world a better place in which to live.
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