Life is more important than architecture.
Oscar NiemeyerRead
I was attracted by the curve β the liberated, sensual curve suggested by the possibilities of new technology yet so often recalled in venerable old baroque churches.
Interpretation
The quote speaks to the blend of modern technology and the timeless beauty found in traditional architecture.
Oscar Niemeyer expresses his fascination with how modern technology can create sensual and liberating curves in design, akin to the curves found in ancient baroque architecture. He highlights the relationship between innovation and tradition, suggesting that new advancements can evoke the elegance and beauty of the past.
In practice
This quote can be used in a lecture on the integration of technology in modern architecture.
Life is more important than architecture.
I deliberately disregarded the right angle and rationalist architecture designed with ruler and square to boldly enter the world of curves and straight lines offered by reinforced concrete... This deliberate protest arose from the environment in which I lived, with its white beaches, its huge mountains, its old baroque churches, and the beautiful suntanned women.
We need to feel that life is important; we need that fantasy so we can live a little better.
Here, then, is what I wanted to tell you of my architecture. I created it with courage and idealism, but also with an awareness of the fact that what is important is life, friends and attempting to make this unjust world a better place in which to live.
When you have a large space to conquer, the curve is the natural solution.
Curves are the essence of my work because they are the essence of Brazil, pure and simple.
San Francisco itself is art, above all literary art. Every block is a short story, every hill a novel. Every home a poem, every dweller within immortal. That is the whole truth.
Creating is living doubly. The groping, anxious quest of a Proust, his meticulous collecting of flowers, of wallpapers, and of anxieties, signifies nothing else.
A theatre, a literature, an artistic expression that does not speak for its own time has no relevance.
Matisse makes a drawing, then he makes a copy of it. He copies it five times, ten times, always clarifying the line. Heβs convinced that the last, the most stripped down, is the best, the purest, the definitive one; and in fact, most of the time, it was the first. In drawing, nothing is better than the first attempt.
The role of the artist is to not look away.
A lot of people insisted on a wall between modern dance and ballet. I'm beginning to think that walls are very unhealthy things.
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