Fares El-Dahdah
2010
This glossy, impeccably produced book begins as a celebration of the work of Modernist architect Oscar Niemeyer, best known as the guiding genius behind Brasilia’s spectacular architecture, and a leading designer of the United Nations headquarters. Niemeyer turned 102 in December 2009, and the intersection of that event with the 50th anniversary of Brasilia, in 2010, was reason enough to conduct a studio at Rice University s School of Architecture on the Modernist master. Each of the book’s eight components is absorbing: from reconstructions of some furniture pieces by Niemeyer and his daughter Ana Maria; to a look at the typically Brazilian elements of Niemeyer s architecture; to proposals for as-yet-undeveloped quadrants of Brasilia.
Architecture at Rice #46