Visionary Brazilian Architect Oscar Niemeyer Has Died Aged 104

Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer has died aged 104. He proved in his own lifetime to be an incredible influence on an entire generation and style of architecture. 

The Brazilian architect has famously defied the normalcy of design, revolving his own designs around the concept of the curve. He was well known to speak sentimentally about curves, his memoir was even named after them; The Curves of Time. In it he said, "I am attracted to free-flowing sensual curves... When you have a large space to conquer, the curve is the natural solution.. The curves that I find in the mountains of my country, the sinuousness of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean and on the body of the beloved woman." Having been born in Rio Di Janeiro he often referred to the landscape he was surrounded from at birth for informing his design processes and ideas.

His most famous buildings include the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum, the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, and the Latin American parliament building in São Paulo, as well as a variety of other buildings that defined the landscape of Brasilia in Brasil. He had continued to work on designs for new builds until earlier this year, and the Óscar Niemeyer International Cultural Centre in the Principality of Asturias in Spain was built last year, when he was the ripe old age of 103. In 1988, he won architecture's top honor, the Pritzker Architecture Prize, and also even won the Lenin Peace Prize. Despite all these accolades, he also came under criticism within his lifetime. As a communist, his designs weren't deemed appropriate for that viewpoint, because they were deemed more geared toward design itself rather than for the people actually using the buildings. Nevertheless, he has around 600 buildings to pay homage to his legacy.