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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.

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
Structure
Audacious
Building
Structures
Support
Supporting
Important
Diminish
Work
Reduce
Always
Minimum
Life
Architecture
Ambition

More quotes by Oscar Niemeyer

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Surprise is key in all art.
Oscar Niemeyer
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It is not with architecture that one can disseminate any political ideology.
Oscar Niemeyer
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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.
Oscar Niemeyer
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The challenge of a cathedral is very good for architectural inventiveness.
Oscar Niemeyer
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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.
Oscar Niemeyer
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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
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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.
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.
Oscar Niemeyer
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The rule is the worst thing. You just want to break it.
Oscar Niemeyer
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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.
Oscar Niemeyer
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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.
Oscar Niemeyer
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I am a Brazilian before I am an architect. I cannot separate the two.
Oscar Niemeyer
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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.
Oscar Niemeyer
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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.
Oscar Niemeyer
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We need to feel that life is important we need that fantasy so we can live a little better.
Oscar Niemeyer
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My work is not about form follows function, but form follows beauty or, even better, form follows feminine.
Oscar Niemeyer
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Life is more important than architecture.
Oscar Niemeyer
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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.
Oscar Niemeyer
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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
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Humanity needs dreams to be able to survive the miseries of daily existence, even if only for an instant.
Oscar Niemeyer