Architect Oscar Niemeyer Celebrates 103rd Birthday With New Museum

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Dec 16th 2010 at 11:02PM

Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer celebrated his 103rd birthday this week with a special honor, the opening of a museum dedicated to his career in Niteroi near Rio de Janeiro. The museum showcases exhibits that reference the architect's 70 years of work. His building can be seen all around the world from the swooping modernist concrete buildings in the futuristic capital of Brasilia to U.N. headquarters in New York.

Niemeyer isn't done yet, he continues to work and showed up at the museum launch. The Oscar Niemeyer cultural center in Aviles, Spain also opened on Wednesday. Niemeyer designed the Niteroi museum himself and the area is also home to several other of his buildings. He has said that the curves of the women of Brazil have inspired his designs.

Niemeyer also designed the Oscar Niemeyer Cultural Center in Aviles which opened its main dome on the architect's birthday as well. BBC News says that the authorities in Aviles are hoping for a bit of a Bilbao effect, that the new museum will draw visitors the same way the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim museum in Bilbao attracted guests.

Tags: architecture, Brasilien, Oscar Niemeyer