Atto Belloli Ardessi: How do Brazilian artists interpret the concept of utopia? What is a utopia in your view? Could Brasilia be considered a utopia?
Oscar Niemeyer: I think Brasilia was always thought of as a necessity. In the late '50s President Kubischeck believed that Brazil ought to develop inland, so Brasilia was intended as a city that would lead to other projects, expansions aspiring to repopulate the country's interior regions. There is no utopia. Or rather this project was not only a utopia.
In your opinion, is this necessity evident in Brasilia's architecture? How much has the city's layout influenced society, and in particular the inhabitants of Brasilia?
Brasilia's modern architecture employs reinforced concrete to find its proper form, the line best suited to it as a symbol. The architecture we offer is invention. We do not confine ourselves to organising space simply with a view to creating functional forms. Architecture is invention, a machine for creating surprise. Reinforced concrete makes everything possible. We who use it as a plastic material must mould it according to all the possibilities that technology provides. In Brasilia we are currently building a 120-metre-high tower that will be topped by a system of balancing mechanisms, pendulums and huge oscillating structures which will move in every direction. The interior will contain restaurants and other commercial facilities. We are also designing a kind of roof that will be hoisted upwards like a great sail parallel to the ground, big enough to cover a football field. Architecture as we understand it lets us see how to exploit the infinite possibilities of reinforced concrete. This material leads us to discover any number of solutions, according to the spaces which they are to occupy.
It is interesting that, despite the use of reinforced concrete, you manage to give your architecture such a natural appearance.
We try to use very few supports in our structures. If a building has few points of contact with the ground, this makes it all the more audacious and the spaces become more striking. Without impairing the principles of reinforced concrete, people can walk right into the structure to discover a different form. Our architecture approaches the field of art, of painting and sculpture, in the sense that we still manage to create a kind of architecture that provokes surprise and wonder, and that must always be astonishing. An observer has to look at his or her surroundings and immediately think that they are different. An artwork is based on the emotion and surprise that it arouses. We would like to obtain the same effect through architecture.
During the construction of Brasilia, what kind of relationship was there between the architectural works and the work of the artists invited to take part in the project?
I have always favoured the integration of the arts. My first ever project was for a church at Pampulha. I designed a building full of curved surfaces, and then called on Portinari, the best painter of the time, to decorate an entire wall with azulejos. In this way, we always try to get plastic artists to complete our works of architecture, as happened in Brasilia, for example, with Athos Bulcão. At the moment I'm building a theatre at Niterói where there will be a huge wall of azulejos. There wasn't enough money to call on an artist, so in my own style I had to paint some women dancing. I sometimes think that, putting their mere structure aside, if the Renaissance palaces weren't embellished with their fantastic paintings, they wouldn't be as wonderful as they are. I think this is undeniable. We must come to terms with artists and their work, and their work must concur with and adhere to the architecture. This collaboration is indispensable.
Praça da Soberania is one of the most recent projects you have presented for Brasilia, yet Brasilia turned it down. This seems odd to me, quite unique in your whole creative career.
I'd like you to see the project in a different light. When I saw that in Brasilia's city plan the main piazza was going to be a small square adjacent to the bus station, I realised that it ought to have been an altogether different piazza. Therefore, since I am the person responsible for Brasilia's architecture, I took it upon myself to suggest a new square with an underground car park, but which was beautiful on the surface and had monumental status. But there were many objections. Some people thought I was too keen on influencing, or forcing, the plan for Brasilia. Yet I influenced nothing and I respected everything. A capital city ought to have a fine piazza, one you won't ever forget once you've been there. People didn't accept this. I fought and had to explain how my idea would have to be adapted to the context. I pointed out that I had the right to fight for my architectural works in Brasilia to appear in the best light, given that the main buildings are placed along a great axis, as if in a stage set. But it was all in vain; they wouldn't accept it. I wanted to design an isolated architectural feature, so the architecture would come across more forcibly. But they said that a capital city must not be changed. But it's not true, because all capitals have undergone changes. In Paris, Napoleon created great avenues. In Spain, the city of Madrid has steadily expanded towards the sea.
What does change mean for you?
I explained that a city has to undergo changes. It seems a modern idea, but change can be forced on us in every sort of way. As a joke I told those who had refused my project that it will soon be nature influencing the city's layout. The ocean will rise by four metres when the polar icecaps melt, submerging the coastal cities. But they don't want to modify Brasilia. We should immediately start thinking about how to deal with the situation in case the ocean does start to rise one day in 40 years' time. We try to keep ourselves informed about this. For example, over the last five years we have had a professor coming here to our office to talk about philosophy and the cosmos. We also edit an architectural periodical. Actually, architecture is just the pretext, while the magazine's real purpose is to provide young people with the information they need. In all disciplines, from medicine to engineering, when young people finish their studies, as specialists they can only talk about their idea of architecture, or more in general their job. They haven't yet thought about or taken much notice of all the rest, of life itself, which is more important than architecture. Thus the political struggle that we want to undertake with them becomes impossible, because they are not ready to take part in it. This magazine we publish serves as a means to introduce young people to all kinds of things. Something like this can be an aid to understanding life, which is the most important thing of all. We would like to make a world in which there is more justice for everyone. We have to look at others without searching for their defects, but attempting to see that they, too, have qualities to offer in joint activities. We wish to stand up for this solidarity in every respect. Here is the phrase I once used as the motto for one of my exhibitions: "Life is more important than architecture. The fight goes on. In defence of Latin America and the progress of the world." This is the only reason we are experiencing a moment which allows us to cherish a certain hope; this is the only way everything will change, the only way that no one will be able to lay their hands on Latin America. Because capitalism is in crisis.
In your view, what is the relationship between space and architecture?
When you get down to it, what are space and architecture? Give me a site and a programme, and the architecture will emerge in keeping with the programme and the site. Our architecture is created using reinforced concrete, and there are only a few supports touching the ground. As a result, the structure becomes lighter and more audacious, as I mentioned before. The spaces also become more ample, and in this way modified so that people can congregate in them. One must always make every building unlike any other. It is the same concept as for a work of art, which arouses emotion in the observer because he or she is seeing something novel and different. Architecture, as I said before, is invention. All the rest is repetition and of no interest. The secret is in the programme; every detail must work perfectly... At the moment I am also designing a theatre in Argentina, a pavilion that will hold as many as 2,000 people. My clients are enthusiastic about the project. It's true that one might find a more beautiful theatre, but there won't ever be one exactly the same. That's what makes it a work of art: it is a different and surprising thing.
Which city would you most like to live in?
Ah, I am Brazilian. I love Rio, where we have the sea.
Why have you never thought of Brasilia?
Brasilia was badly laid out. It was done in a hurry, at a time when there was nothing there at all.
Now that I've been in Rio for a few days, I'm struck by how certain buildings, especially along the seafront, are positioned almost as an affront to their natural surroundings. Looking from above, on the other hand, I was surprised at how the favelas seem more integrated with the environment and that, extensive as they are, they're paradoxically more respectful of it.
Architecture is usually the result of the terrain and its surroundings. If the terrain is steep, then architecture adapts itself to that. Even if they've put up this great wall of buildings facing the sea, nature will scale it. Nature is so rich as to overcome everything. Rio De Janeiro was founded in 1500. The Portuguese built a road and erected buildings along it, side by side. Two-, three-, or even four-storey buildings. They started this way with utter simplicity. As soon as they finished one road they started another. Architecture also followed the same path. Then one day they felt they were running out of space and had to be more careful with it, because the "garden" type of architecture had had its day. At that point they began to build vertically and Rio became like New York, which is a filthy mess. Let me explain. As buildings get taller they lose their hold on the corresponding horizontal space, so that vertical architecture comes to dominate. Only in France have I seen this concept used to good effect in a vertical city, and that's in the district of La Défense. There you find both vertical architecture and horizontal spaces. It is a monumental and beautiful city.
In Brasilia the streets running at right angles to the main avenues have no names, but only numbers. In Europe streets are usually named after a person or an event. But in your capital there are only numbers. How important is it for Brasilia to remain impersonal?
Brasilia is very simplified. There are two perpendicular axes and the buildings are constructed in accordance with this intersection. When you enter Brasilia you go through the most exclusive residential quarter, where you find the apartment houses and everything else: space for local business, schools, and so on. Everything is in the right place. But as you go further you get to the satellite cities, and there you find utter poverty. For this reason I think of Brasilia as a city emerging from some measure of provincialism, because it is incorporating poverty into the wealthy zone. But people don't care about this. We would have liked to create a city that was both more simple and more homogeneous, where there would have been neither so much poverty nor so much wealth. The kind of architecture we communists would like is one in which the dwellings were simpler, so that the major works, the theatres, the stadiums and the cinemas, could be even larger, allowing everyone to participate in social life. If I design a theatre today, who do I do it for? People don't even need to enter it; they can see from outside and judge by that. But since I am creating an original piece of architecture, I want everyone to share in it. However, Brazil is very backward in these social aspects. Here in Rio, people who live in the luxury apartments overlooking the sea regard the favelas as enemy territory. Yet our brethren live there, stuck without schools or any other facilities. It's only logical that they grow up angry and rebellious. The worst thing is the lack of understanding. At least here in my studio we try to provide an example of how we'd like people to acquire a degree of knowledge. As I mentioned, for five years we have had a teacher giving us lectures on literature, and now even on cosmology. After his lessons we feel a little bit humbler. But it would be a wonderful thing if the whole world could have an idea of the universe we live in, which both humbles and enchants us at the same time. When we look at the cosmos now, we feel small. We feel that man ought to be simpler. Few things are important. Man is a poor wretch from the start. One day a journalist came to me and asked: "What is the most important word for you?" My answer was, "Solidarity." Another journalist asked, "Oscar, what about life?" I told him: "Life is having a wife at your side, and after that it's up to God." This is true. A wife is the most important of comrades. As for life, take it as it comes. It's not at our command. Some people come here thinking that we will save the world with architecture or literature, but what is needed is solidarity. We have to think in terms of equality, knowing that we men are not all that important, and therefore we must be simpler at heart. The rest is trivial. I've had a lot of work because I have been lucky. When I was young I designed a small church that was just a little different, and got recognition at once. The project was appreciated from the start. At that time I, too, was in search of work. We have to be modest, without thinking of being important. This thinking oneself important seems ridiculous to me. I only derive pleasure from helping others.
So what do you think represents the Brazilian utopia?
Brasilia is nothing anymore. It is not an example, simply a provincial capital.
When I was in Brasilia I noticed that the architecture was detached and overwhelming in respect to the individual. In Italy, we often suffer from a shortage of living space in our cities, whereas in Brasilia I felt there was all too much of it, as if in demonstration of its hostility.
Brasilia, I repeat, was a real necessity. To move the capital into the interior of the country was the choice adopted by the President. With the same amount of money he could have built railways crossing Brazil from side to side. But it would have only been one of many possible solutions. He preferred to build a city, thinking ahead and imagining what is in fact happening now: other towns are beginning to spring up around Brasilia, occupying more of the country.
The interview with Oscar Niemeyer is taken from the book After Utopia. A View on Brazilian Contemporary Art, published by the Luigi Pecci Centre for Contemporary Art in Prato, Tuscany, with the International Institute of Futurist Studies, for the exhibition curated by Atto Belloli Ardessi with Ginevra Bria at the Pecci Centre from 25 October 2009 to 14 February 2010.