On the Russian side, together with the museum, the exhibition was prepared by the Russian Avant-garde Foundation, on the Brazilian side - by Niemeyer's workshop, his foundation, as well as by the Brazilian Embassy in the Russian Federation. This joint Russian-Brazilian event is intended to once again draw attention to the extraordinary personality of the patriarch of 20th century architecture and to his work.
The exhibition is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the architect, who, at his venerable age, continues to design and even - there were such rumors - thought about coming to Moscow for the anniversary. The visit did not take place - and the architect, celebrating his 100th birthday at the casa de Canoes, built according to his own design, listened to Moscow congratulations on the phone. But the opening was attended by Niemeyer's grandson Kadu, who, in fact, called to congratulate his grandfather. Many came to the opening day specifically to be present at this action. True, no one heard the celebrity's voice, but everyone had the opportunity to personally congratulate Niemeyer, shouting "hurray" in chorus into the telephone receiver.
The paradox is that Oscar Niemeyer - the last representative of "heroic modernism", a practicing nowadays, convinced "stone" communist, in Russia did not build anything except a small monument in 2004. After the military dictatorship came to power in Brazil, Niemeyer lived in France and worked a lot for the French Communist Party, and somewhat later for the Cuban. In the USSR, the architect did not work, although he was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1963 - by handing it remotely, in Brazil. But in the Soviet architecture of the 1970s, a lot was borrowed from Niemeyer - massive bends, concrete domes and vast concrete squares, in the midst of which it is so cold in winter.
The exhibition, which opened in the suite of the Museum of Architecture, is as emotional and poetic as the work of the great Brazilian modernist itself. It shows 40 selected works, both buildings and projects - the most significant, according to the curator of the exhibition, the Brazilian architectural historian Marcos de Lontra Costa. A large part of the exposition dates back to the 2000s - in order to show that Oscar Niemeyer is still actively working on projects for Brazil and other countries: this year alone, the construction of several of his new buildings in Brasilia and Niteroi was completed.
The architecture is shown in large color pictures, photographs of buildings and visualizations of projects, which alternate with completely white lapidary layouts. The design dates for each structure are not signed - which enhances the timeless effect inherent in Niemeyer's architecture, however, the exposition is chronologically divided into 5 stages and generously diluted with texts - from Niemeyer and about Niemeyer, as well as withstanding any enlarged Matisse-style drawings of the architect, the main whose heroes - human hands and female bodies - can, if desired, be discerned in almost any of the buildings and projects shown here.
Among the texts, a lot is devoted to socio-political problems: the staunch communist Oscar Niemeyer, a friend of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, with equal fervor calls on young architects to express themselves creatively and to fight social inequality, the "Bush empire" and other manifestations of injustice and imperialism. His social statements are full of sincerity and convictions, the architect thinks of his work without struggle, which makes Niemeyer's work seem to be an inseparable fusion of Latin American sensuality, left pathos and laconic "sculptural" architecture - one is impossible without the other, which, in fact, asserts the famous Brazilian modernist in their statements at different times. A voluminous catalog has been published for the exhibition, which almost completely reflects its content.
Like any monographic exhibition, "The Poetry of Form" makes one think about the role that Niemeyer played in the development of world architecture. The exposition in MUAR begins with the complex in Pampulle in the early 1940s, and the building of the Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro, on the project of which the young Niemeyer worked with Le Corbusier in the 1930s, remains outside the brackets. connects it with the "modern movement" of European architecture. As a result, at the exhibition, the Brazilian architect appears as a self-formed, without external influence and an early period of development.
Most of the architect's work demonstrates various uses for curvilinear forms - this is the basis for Niemeyer's personal contribution to modern architecture. The extraordinary plasticity of his buildings, which makes them related to sculptures, is very attractive: after all, the architect himself calls beauty the goal of his work. He also talks about the role of poetry and emotions in architectural design. His museums in Niteroi, Brasilia, Curitiba, public buildings in Sao Paulo, Le Havre, Constantin, the same Brasilia - look like decorations of the cities where they are located. Niemeyer even calls for caution in landscape architecture and landscaping in general: after all, his own buildings look best in the middle of huge asphalt or concrete slabs, against the background of a bright southern sky.
But their emphatically laconic forms, with an almost complete absence of details that would allow a person to relate himself to these amazing buildings and assess their actual size, often make them look like huge models. The photographs and three-dimensional renderings of Niemeyer's projects hanging next to the exhibition are very similar - even too similar for real and imaginary architecture.
The defining importance of freedom of creativity for an artist, about which the architect often speaks, suggests that Niemeyer, who began his studies as an artist, works in the categories of fine art, not architecture. His play with curvilinear forms and geometric volumes often results in a contradiction between the appearance and the solution of the interior space of the building - and sometimes its functionality. For example, the spectacular hemisphere of the Museum of the Republic (2004-2007) in Brasilia is poorly suited for the exhibition of paintings or graphics: the gently curving walls of its interior force curators to invent special options for hanging works. So Niemeyer unexpectedly appears as the first of a cohort of architect-artists, for whom formal experiment plays a major role in creativity, and the functionality and orientation towards the future "user" of the building are of only limited importance. Sometimes Oscar Niemeyer is added as the fourth to the "triad" of architectural geniuses of the 20th century: Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Alvar Aalto. But it seems more fair to associate him with a series of younger contemporaries, of which one can name Frank Gehry or Daniel Libeskind, who were also keen on the search for new, plastic and effective forms to the detriment of the utilitarian purpose of the building. If we accept this line of reasoning, then the great Brazilian elder architect Oscar Niemeyer - the grandfather of modern curvilinearity, at the age of a century cheerfully does not let go of a pencil - is more than worthy of his honors, he is truly a living legend.
