Palácio da Alvorada, is the much like America’s own white house in that this is a governmental building and the current home of the President of Brazil. This building was designed by Oscar Niemeyer on request of the Brazilian president of his time, and who was a close friend of Oscar Niemeyer as well. This building is beautifully built and designed and just screams the sort of style that oozes off Oscar’s work much like the Contemporary Art Museum.

The building here is, of course, built in Oscar’s modernist style. The building is in an area of 7,000 square metres that is distributed along three floors: basement, landing and second floor. The second floor is where the current president of lives while the rest of the building is for governmental use.

In the 1940s to the 1950s Oscar Niemeyer did a lot of work for cities in producing structures for apartment buildings that were designed with high population in mind. Many of these residential buildings, especially the one pictured above known as the Edifício Copan, have restaurants and businesses in them along with apartments. While these buildings may not be overly designed like some of his other works they still take notes from his overall style and his personal ideas on how to improve the lives of other people.

Each of the buildings pictured below were all designed by Oscar Niemeyer during the the 50s for the city of São Paulo.  

This is one of the coolest and most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen designed and it was done for Brazil’s catholic population. Although Oscar was an atheist  himself but it is said that he had a deep respect for individual beliefs and a love for his culture, which is evident in many of his designs, and so was more than happy to design a place of worship for the people. The modernism in his design is such a fresh take on Catholic Church design and like a lot of his other designs it sports a moat around the building.

The interior of the church is rather large and the ceiling funnels up toward the sky which draws the eye upward toward the beautifully designed glass work and hanging statues. Oscar really captured the feel and purpose of a church in his own free-flowing style.

Oscar Niemeyer’s crowning jewel, In my opinion, that integrates every kind of design that he was well known for. The Contemporary Art Museum in Niterói is 16 meters high with a saucer-shaped cupola, a diameter of 50 meters,  and has three floors inside it. The viewing gallery in Rio’s Niterói Contemporary Art Museum looks out over Guanabara Bay and offers views of the Sugar Loaf Mountain.

No this isn’t Tony Stark’s home, but it sure does look like it.

Here Is the floor plan of the building.

Perhaps one of the most well-known buildings around the world is The United Nations Headquarters in New York City, and Oscar Niemeyer was assigned as one of the youngest head designers of the building. The above picture is the board of designers who worked on the United Nations with Oscar being in the very center of the shot and one of the few looking at the camera.

Impressed with his work in the World’s Fair during his time, Oscar, was brought on board to help design this important building. And one can definitely see Oscar’s designs with the use of concrete and the way some of the extensions of the facility curve.

 Being that The United Nations Headquarters is such a well-known and important building I figured this would be an excellent introduction into Oscar’s most famous building designs.

The Brazilian architect, Oscar Niemeyer, was well known during his life for his free-flow style buildings and a naturalism ideal to design as well as his own personal political views on Utopian aesthetic. His most notable projects being his work on the United Nations building and the Contemporary Art Museum in Niterói, and his influence spreads far into a sort of post-modern design seen today from other builders and architects. A quote from Oscar Niemeyer in regards to his work, “I consciously ignored the highly praised right angle and the rational architecture of T-squares and triangles,” he said, “in order to wholeheartedly enter the world of curves and new shapes made possible by the introduction of concrete into the building process.” (Personal opinion: His buildings remind me of 80’s science-fiction movies)

A legendary architect, faithful husband, communist, and  outspoken teacher Oscar passed away on December 5th, 2012 at the age of 104 years old.

The Boston Avenue Methodist Church is perhaps on of my favorite structures in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s tall tower, its grandiose style, and high stone walls usually aren’t my style, but this building inspired my love for Art Deco designs when I first saw it in person. Of course, it’s just another church I haven’t stepped inside, and I bet it’s beautiful but I suppose seeing that art of the building from the outside is just as good.

The building was constructed in 1927 and was designed by Bruce Goff. It has become a stable of Tulsa architecture with many other buildings within the area also being designed much like this church, and it has a long-standing history with the city.   A truly beautiful church, one of my favorite art designs, and for now one of my favorite grandiose structures until I become more well traveled that is.

The Old Point Loma Lighthouse is a landmark located in Cabrillo National Monument Park in San Diego, California. The entire area of the park is rather large and is designed in the architectural style of late 19th and 20th-century revival. It’s a small structure located at one of the higher peaks within the park, but it has a lot of history and the I’ve always been a fan of lighthouses. Of course, I’ve always just been a fan of anything old world and minimalistic.

The lighthouse tower jets out of the main house in the direct center of the home, which was furnished with antique appliances and decorations as the lighthouse now serves as a small museum. The lighthouse has so much care put into its maintenance and the preservation of its history that it remains a very charming addition to the entirety of the park. When I first visited this lighthouse it gave me an appreciation for the history of the city I lived in at the time, and it much like the old mission in Okmulgee I mentioned in an earlier blog ignited for simplistic and humble architecture.

Living in San Diego, California, for a little bit of time in my life, I really fell in love with natural landscapes, oceans, and the desert climates that were only a short hike away. And as such, there weren’t many structures that left me  awestruck  compared to the natural beauty of the area, but San Diego architecture has a lot to love and many impressive buildings as it is a major Southern California  city. But one  of the structures I loved to visit during family hiking expeditions was Mount Soledad Memorial. It isn’t a building but the amount of detail and design put into it always impressed me.

Mount Soledad Memorial’s present structure was built in the 1954 and was designed by architect Donald Campbell. It has come under scrutiny over the years by opponents who say that it is a clear violation of separation of  church and state. But I find the use of marble walls, concrete, and landscaping melds well with the surrounding San Diego scenery. But as of recently, I believe the land that this memorial is now privately owned and cannot be taken down unless by federal court order.

Living in Tulsa one of my favorite buildings was the BOK Center found on South Denver Avenue.  It’s naturalistic and art deco designs make it stand out  in downtown  Tulsa, but at the same time these themes are familiar in the city of Tulsa so it looks like it belongs where it is. It is a beautiful silvered arena designed by architect César Pelli, who took his time to consider the themes and artistic designs of Oklahoma to create this arena that was the first in a larger Tulsa project called Vision 2025.

My first time seeing this building my friends and I had bought tickets for a concert, and I remember waiting in line outside the arena and staring up at the structure. It was impressive, huge, and it was perhaps one of the few buildings that I had seen like it up close. I’m sure this elicited some form of conversation even from a group of teens among other conversations of other interests and concert we were going to watch.

The inside of the BOK Center can seat over 19,000 people and has a very impressive and state of the art facilities for concerts, sports events, and surprisingly monster truck rallies. I’ve had the pleasure of sitting in box seats and on the ground floor during concerts, and the inside inspires as much awe as the outside.