Serpentine Gallery pays tribute to Oscar Niemeyer
06/12/2012
The Serpentine pays tribute to Oscar Niemeyer, designer of the 2003 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion.
"It was an unbelievable privilege to work on the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2003 with Oscar Niemeyer, a man who was for me the Picasso of architecture. He was the world's last great modernist - a visionary who continued to work with astonishing energy to the end." Julia Peyton-Jones, Director, Serpentine Gallery.
The 2003 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion was Oscar Niemeyer's first project in the United Kingdom. He was commissioned to design a temporary Pavilion for the Gallery's annual architectural series. It opened on 14 June 2003 to critical acclaim.
Oscar Niemeyer said at the time: "My idea was to keep this project different, free and audacious. That is what I prefer. I like to draw, I like to see from the blank sheet of paper a palace, a cathedral, the figure of a woman appearing. But life for me is much more important than architecture."
The Pavilion he created for the Serpentine Gallery had much of the spirit of one of his own sketches brought to life. Made of concrete and steel the structure looked more like a permanent addition to the Kensington Gardens than it was.
The Times described the Pavilion as "a modern architectural gem", and the
Evening Standard wrote "Imagine Garbo or Sinatra in their prime, and performing now. With this week's opening of the 2003 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, just such a time-warping miracle is taking place."
Installation shots of Niemeyer's 2003 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion can now be viewed in high definition and as an interactive panorama as part of
Google Art Project.
Oscar Niemeyer was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1907, where he graduated from the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio in 1934, before joining a team of architects collaborating with Le Corbusier on a new Ministry of Education and Health in the city. Throughout the 1950s, he designed ground-breaking public and corporate buildings in Brazil. From 1956 he became chief architect of Nova Cap, the organisation charged with the creation of Brasilia, Brazil's new capital city. The work he did on this extraordinary project, which included two of his masterpieces, the National Congress (1958-60) and the Cathedral (1958-70), brought him international acclaim.
In 1964 a political coup forced him into exile in France, where he designed the headquarters of the French Communist Party, two universities in Algeria and several important buildings in Italy. With the end of the Brazilian dictatorship he returned to his native country. Among many other international honours, he was awarded the Pritzker Prize for Architecture in 1988.
The Serpentine's Pavilion commission, conceived in 2000 by Gallery Director Julia Peyton-Jones, has become an international site for architectural experimentation and has presented projects by some of the world's greatest architects. Each Pavilion is sited on the Gallery's lawn for three months and the immediacy of the commission - a maximum of six months from invitation to completion - provides a unique model worldwide. The Pavilion architects to date are: Herzog & de Meuron & Ai Weiwei 2012; Peter Zumthor, 2011; Jean Nouvel, 2010; Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, SANAA, 2009; Frank Gehry, 2008; Olafur Eliasson and Kjetil Thorsen, 2007; Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond, with Arup, 2006; Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura with Cecil Balmond, Arup, 2005; MVRDV with Arup, 2004 (un-realised); Oscar Niemeyer, 2003; Toyo Ito and Cecil Balmond - with Arup, 2002; Daniel Libeskind with Arup, 2001; and Zaha Hadid, 2000.
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Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2003 by Oscar Niemeyer
© Sylvain Deleu
Oscar Niemeyer
© Mark Robinson
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2003 by Oscar Niemeyer
© Sylvain Deleu
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2003 by Oscar Niemeyer
© Sylvain Deleu
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2003 by Oscar Niemeyer
© Sylvain Deleu
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2003 by Oscar Niemeyer
© Peter Cook/VIEW
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2003 by Oscar Niemeyer
© Richard Bryant / archaidimages.com
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2003 by Oscar Niemeyer
© Sylvain Deleu
