OSCAR NIEMEYER | classics and unseen
reflecting pools, in deference to the city’s dry climate, but the empty space remains, along with the unimpeded view of the buildings. The dome of the Museu de Arte has a ramp suspended around it, like a ring of Saturn, which provides an aerial walk above the Esplanada dos Ministérios. The inclined plane that gives access to the building, stretching in a straight line from the ground up to the entrance, reinforces the archaizing tendency that over the years gained force in Niemeyer’s vocabulary. In these squares surrounding the dense unitary forms with an accentuated archaizing tendency, reassumed during the architect’s phase, the great voids of Brasília are repeated, as they are at Praça dos Três Poderes. The voids of Brasília were created to be filled with civic manifestations, as indeed they have been, and in the intervals between these special moments their silent spaces retain the memory of those events along with a perennial feeling of solemnity. In the public squares designed for cultural centers and leisure, the wide-open spaces between the built volumes are also surprising. They retain the memory of festive moments and are essential for the enjoyment of the oneiric and atemporal mood inherent to Niemeyer’s architectural complexes and objects.
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The voids of Brasília were created to be filled with civic manifestations, as indeed they have been, and in the intervals between these special moments their silent spaces retain the memory of those events along with a perennial feeling of solemnity.
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These voids help to establish the explicitly surrealist character of the palaces and the pure geometric volumes from which the Niemeyerian complexes are composed. Moreover, in some cases they are spaces that do not even need to be penetrated in order to be emotionally felt. The large void between the Palácio da Alvorada and the protective reflecting pool, where the tourist or passerby must pause to admire the chief of state’s residence – from a distance and under the radiant light of that mirage – adds a set of seemingly unexpected attributes to that ethereal, mildly solemn, shimmering and distant image. The large aquatic garden that reflects the arches 104