Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
founding and construction of the city, including photos and video clips of his funeral
and the dedication of the Memorial - in turning out in their hundreds of thousands
in his honour, despite the desire of the military dictatorship to keep the event low-key,
the population of the Distrito Federal made the first important anti-military
demonstration, one of the reasons for the subsequent slow relaxing of the military's
grip on power.
6
Memorial dos Povos Indígenas
Eixo Monumental Oeste • Tues-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat & Sun 10am-5pm • Free •
T
61 3344 1154,
W
www.cultura.df.gov.br/nossa-cultura
/museus/memorial-dos-povos-indigenas.html
Southeast of the JK Memorial is another Niemeyer building, the white and curving
Memorial dos Povos Indígenas
, which houses one of the best collections of
indigenous
art
in Brazil, much of it from the
planalto
itself, produced by the indigenous groups
who inhabit the headwaters of the Xingú River. Highlights are the extraordinary
ceramic pots of the Warao, the Xingú's ceramic specialists, beautifully adorned with
figures of birds and animals, and vivid, delicate featherwork. The rotating exhibits and
regular travelling shows are always fascinating, but the building alone is worth the visit;
the gallery is set in a long, downward curve around a circular courtyard, the smoked
glass set against Niemeyer's trademark brilliant white exterior. At the lower end is a
café
, virtually never open but where Indians up from the Xingú often leave artwork for
the museum staff to sell for them.
Asa Sul
he
residential areas
of Brasília are rarely thought of as a destination for visitors,
but the older areas are by far the best place for a stroll during the day. The oldest
superquadras
are all in
Asa Sul
; 108 Sul was the first to be completed in the whole city.
The adjacent blocks from 107 down to 104 were all built shortly after and make for a
great
urban walk
- take a bus or walk up W3 Sul, get off at the 508 block, walk two
blocks down, and then start strolling towards the centre.
OSCAR NIEMEYER
Oscar Niemeyer
(1907-2012) was the greatest architect Latin America has produced. He's
best known for his unique contribution to Brasília, but during his long and highly productive
life he left his mark on most of Brazil's major cities, especially Rio and Belo Horizonte. Widely
regarded as the most influential modernist architect of the twentieth century after Le
Corbusier, he also designed important buildings abroad, including the Serpentine Gallery
in London and the Le Havre Cultural Centre in France.
Born in Rio in 1907, he was influenced as a student by Le Corbusier's geometric ideas
on urban planning and design; his first major commission, the building of the Ministry of
Education in Rio in 1937, now known as the Palácio Gustavo Capanema, shows this influence
clearly. By the 1940s Niemeyer began to show his independence and originality with a series
of buildings in the Belo Horizonte suburb of Pampulha, which gave a recognizably Brazilian
twist to Le Corbusier, adding curves, ramps and buttresses to buildings decades ahead of
their time. Niemeyer's designs were
controversial
: the São Francisco church in Pampulha
(see p.146) was completed in 1943 but not consecrated until 1959, so reluctant was the
Catholic Church to endorse such a radical departure. But the germs of Brasília were clearly
evident in his work in Pampulha, a decade before the new capital was begun.
After Brasília, Niemeyer became an
international star
and beyond criticism in his own
country, which had its advantages: he was the only militant Communist never to be troubled
by the military dictatorship. He built a number of other unforgettable buildings, the most
spectacular being the Museum of Modern Art in Niterói (see p.110), across the bay from Rio,
perched like a modernist flying saucer over the sea.
