OSCAR NIEMEYER | classics and unseen
A WORLD HERITAGE ANA LUCIA NIEMEYER President for Fundação Oscar Niemeyer
Fundação Oscar Niemeyer is a not-for-profit institution created in 1988 with the main goal of preserving and fostering awareness about the architect’s work. Its activities began with the receipt of documents produced and accumulated by Niemeyer in his office in the course of his celebrated and influential career. Fundação Oscar Niemeyer’s collection consists of about 10 thousand architectural documents (blueprints, sketches, technical drawings), 30 meters of textual documentation (correspondence and various texts) and 8 thousand photographic documents, constituting a source of information and research regarding an architecture that was the forerunner of important worldwide trends. In 2009, the collection was officially recognized by President Lula as being of public and social interest, and it was registered internationally by UNESCO’s Memory of the World Program, an honorary title that distinguishes it as a world heritage. The sketches, albums and drawings of the architect’s archive are the core of this collection, which includes more than 5 thousand originals. Out of nearly 600 architectural and urbanistic designs, more than 350 are represented in these documents, attesting to their relevance for the memory of modern architecture and urbanism. The partnership with Instituto Itaú Cultural allowed for the digitalization of these important documents in the collection, which will ensure not only better security and preservation conditions, but also wider access, not only by researchers and scholars in the architecture field, but by the general public as well. This is the aim of this exhibition, in which, for the first time, Oscar Niemeyer’s legacy is presented under a comprehensive approach. 10