Life is more important than architecture.
Oscar NiemeyerRead
There is no reason to design buildings that are more basic and rectilinear, because with concrete you can cover almost any space.
Interpretation
Oscar Niemeyer advocates for architectural creativity using concrete.
In this quote, Oscar Niemeyer emphasizes the limitless possibilities of concrete in architectural design. He suggests that there is no need to conform to simplistic and rigid structures when concrete allows for innovative and fluid forms, encouraging architects to explore creative boundaries in their designs.
In practice
In a presentation about modern architecture, one could use this quote to illustrate the potential of concrete in design.
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.
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.
The state of female artists is very good. But the very definition of art has been biased in that 'art' was what men did in a European tradition and 'crafts' were what women and natives did. But it's actually all the same.
As you begin to realize that every different type of music, everybody's individual music, has its own rhythm, life, language and heritage, you realize how life changes, and you learn how to be more open and adaptive to what is around us.
Sometimes, when you're on the streets, certain music inspires you, and then you have a vision. But, at the end of the day, it's a synthesis of visions, so you have to think, as a director, of a scene, or how to deliver a line, or how do this visually.
Vinyl survived, we managed not to kill it. Knowing that youβve taken part in this fight... You canβt imagine the happiness it brings. Every time I see a kid going out of the store with a vinyl record under the arms, my heart beats faster. Music should only be this. An intense emotion.
I believe that all great art holds the power to dissolve things: time, distance, difference, injustice, alienation, despair. I believe that all great art holds the power to mend things: join, comfort, inspire hope in fellowship, reconcile us to our selves. Art is good for my soul precisely because it reminds me that we have souls in the first place.
Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does.
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