Quote

It was the drawing that led me to architecture, the search for light and astonishing forms.

Oscar Niemeyer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Drawing
Forms
Form
Light
Astonishing
Search
Architecture

More quotes by Oscar Niemeyer

Image
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.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
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.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
I pick up my pen. It flows. A building appears. There it is. There is nothing more to say.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
My work is not about form follows function, but form follows beauty or, even better, form follows feminine.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
There is no reason to design buildings that are more basic and rectilinear, because with concrete you can cover almost any space.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
The rule is the worst thing. You just want to break it.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
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.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
For me beauty is valued more than anything - the beauty that is manifest in a curved line or in an act of creativity.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
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.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
Surprise is key in all art.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
Architecture does not change anything. It's always on the side of the wealthy. The important thing is to believe that it can make life better.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
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.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
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.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
The architect's role is to fight for a better world, where he can produce an architecture that serves everyone and not just a group of privileged people.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
When students leave college, they are like children who know nothing about the problems of life, and don't have a political stance.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
I am a Brazilian before I am an architect. I cannot separate the two.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
Humanity needs dreams to be able to survive the miseries of daily existence, even if only for an instant.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
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.
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
A church is something very beautiful. It is nice when people feel happy in it. But I am not a religious man. Look at us, and then at the infinity of space. We are rather small insignificant creatures, wouldn’t you say?
Oscar Niemeyer
Image
Life is more important than architecture.
Oscar Niemeyer