6. Planalto Palace
Portuguese name: Palácio do Planalto
Among the range of civic buildings designed by Niemeyer, Planalto Palace remains one among the most influential structures. Planalto Palace in the official workplace for the president of Brazil. Like other works of Niemeyer, this one too creates a strong iconic imagery with its white marble covered slender columns that run through the white concrete roof and the ground, giving an illusion that the structure is balanced on the tiny part through the column. Moreover, the glazing and the reflecting pools around the structure. The dramatic effect is created by the jutting out ramp that leads to the main entrance from the landscaped area over the reflecting pool.
7. Contemporary Art Museum, Niteroi
Portuguese name: Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói
This iconic saucer shaped structure adds an artistic value to the skyline of the city of Niteroi. The disc shaped structure rising from the cliff side rocky site offers a great panoramic view of the sea and the city. The structure is situated on a cliff and accessed via a red carpeted ramp designed to have a graceful curve. The copula is wide with a diameter of 50 m and houses 3 levels. The main hall is hexagonal and boosts of a 400 square meters of column free space, offering a wide panoramic promenade on the periphery. The reason behind Niemeyer using this form for the structure was not only to achieve these technical wonders but also his poetic abstraction of creating a form that arises out of ground and continues to bloom and spread like a flower. This is the level of thought process that Oscar used to invest in his designs.
8. National Congress of Brazil
Portuguese name: Congresso Nacional do Brasil
The National Congress of Brazil is a perfect example of Niemeyer’s Brazilian Modernism movement. The structure is one of the most important as well as influential structures in Brazil and hence Niemeyer designed it to have a strong iconic imagery like most of his other projects. But what makes it stand-out from the scale at which the abstract forms are used. The use of semi spherical forms on the either sides of two vertical towers shows the effort of establishing a strong visual appeal. The semi-sphere on the left is the seat of the Senate, and the semi-sphere on the right is the seat of the Chamber of the Deputies. Between them are two vertical office towers.
9. Oscar Niemeyer Cultural Center, Goiânia
Portuguese name: Centro Cultural Oscar Niemeyer
This is probably one of the most appreciated and admired projects by Niemeyer. The twirling and bending of the forms, use of bold colours in contrast to the white concrete façade. The gracefully curved ramp and the massive semi hemi-spherical dome are all features of Oscar’s modernism style of architecture.
The centre is a hub for all the visual arts, education and film. This identity of the structure is well established through the design that makes bolds use of concrete, glass, stone and color’s that too in a manner that is highly abstract and artistic thus imprinting a strong imagery in the minds of the perceiver.
10. Digital TV Tower, Brasilia
Portuguese name: Torre de TV Digital de
The Brasilia Digital TV Tower is a broadcast tower which made digital television signal available for the whole Federal District and surroundings. It is also known as “Flor do Cerrado” due to its resemblance to the form of the flower which goes by the same name. This reinforced concrete structure is 120 mts. high and then houses a 50 mt. high metallic structure on top of it. The main buildings consists of two observatories and the other structure is designed to be an art gallery.
The highlight of this project is the construction wonders achieved in erecting this skyscraper and also the planning of the observatories in a way that adds to the iconic appeal.
