Niemeyer poet of the (im)possible future

Abstract

Written to pay tribute to the architect Oscar Niemeyer on his one hundredth birthday, the purpose of the article is to oppose the so-called "marxists" interpretation that states that his "work is too far from the reality of Brazil" or yet it is an expression of the `ideas' or 'shapes' out of place. The so-called "marxists" say that his poetic meaning has been attached to a modernistic design that can be applied only to the "desenvolvimentist utopia" during the sixties. Otherwise, we are committed to demonstrate, according to Marx and to the european's vanguards how Niemeyer really overcomes the utopia that sees technique as the redeemer of capitalism (seen in the vanguard's words [Le Corbusier]) and how Niemeyer develops the poetry of the free forms which meaning is linked directly to Brazil's potentialities of a country with no past where "everything needs to be done", in the architect's words. His work is a prophecy in which the content announces, said the architect: "build today tomorrow's past".