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Oscar Niemeyer Sofas

Brazilian, 1907-2012

Oscar Niemeyer made modernist architecture sexy. In his signature designs, such as those for the planned capital city of Brasília, Niemeyer created a distinctively buoyant architectural vocabulary of sweeping curves, flowing lines and organic forms (attributes that also characterize his seductive furniture). As expressions of faith in the power of modern architecture and design to foster progress, Niemeyer’s buildings have a kind of heroic poetry.

Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho was born to an upper-middle-class family in Rio de Janeiro. (His father was a graphic designer.) While in graduate school, Niemeyer began working for Lúcio Costa, one of the few modernist architects working in Brazil in the 1930s. Niemeyer would be assigned to the design team for a new building in Rio for the Ministry of Education and Health. The famed Swiss-born French architect Le Corbusier was hired as a consultant on the project, and through him Niemeyer would absorb many lessons in bringing a sense of structural lightness to large buildings — though he would never embrace the geometric forms espoused by Le Corbusier and the members of the Bauhaus.

“I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man,” Niemeyer would write in his memoirs. “I am attracted to free-flowing sensual curves.”

Nowhere would Niemeyer demonstrate his love of curvature more expressively and elegantly than in his designs for the principal buildings for Brasília, a project begun in 1956. The dramatic Congressional Palace features two stark towers flanked by a domed structure and a bowl-shaped edifice, for the upper and lower legislative houses. He placed the Palácio da Alvorada (the presidential residence) on a small peninsula jutting into a lake, so that the sequence of parabolic columns on its facade casts a mirror image on the water. Niemeyer’s grandest achievement was the city’s cathedral, a stunning composition of 16 arched vertical supports with tinted-glass interstices.

Four years after Brasília was completed, in 1960, Brazil’s elected government was overthrown in a military coup. Niemeyer, a member of the Communist party, was harassed continually by the junta. He left the country and did not return until democracy was restored, in 1985.

While in exile, in the early 1970s, Niemeyer began collaborating on furniture designs with his daughter, Anna Maria Niemeyer. Their best known pieces are seating furniture — the Alta lounge chair and ottoman and the Rio rocking chaise, which have flowing bases made of sheets of lacquered wood or stainless steel, share the aesthetics of Niemeyer’s architecture.

The Alta’s deep, oversized seat pads nod — much like the chair designs of Niemeyer’s countryman Sergio Rodrigues — to the Brazilian penchant for long, languorous conversations. Examples of both designs are priced at about $20,000, depending on age, condition and materials. As you will see on these pages, Oscar Niemeyer’s furniture designs are sleek, sculptural, comfortable and elegant — as well as a compact emblem of the work of one of the great architects of our time.

Find vintage Oscar Niemeyer lounge chairs, tables and other furniture on 1stDibs.

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Creator: Oscar Niemeyer
Oscar Niemeyer Exceptional Sofa in Rosewood and Leather, Hotel SESC, Brazil 1990
By Oscar Niemeyer
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Oscar Niemeyer (1907 - 2012) A rare, three-seat sofa by Oscar Niemeyer for the SESC Hotel Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro; in Brazilian rosewood with black leather cushions. A model of...
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1990s Brazilian Mid-Century Modern Oscar Niemeyer Sofas

Materials

Leather, Hardwood

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Oscar Niemeyer sofas for sale on 1stDibs.

Oscar Niemeyer sofas are available for sale on 1stDibs. These distinctive items are frequently made of wood and are designed with extraordinary care. There are many options to choose from in our collection of Oscar Niemeyer sofas, although brown editions of this piece are particularly popular. Many of the original sofas by Oscar Niemeyer were created in the mid-century modern style in south america during the late 20th century. If you’re looking for additional options, many customers also consider sofas by Móveis Cimo, Percival Lafer, and Sergio Rodrigues. Prices for Oscar Niemeyer sofas can differ depending upon size, time period and other attributes — on 1stDibs, these items begin at $45,000 and can go as high as $75,000, while a piece like these, on average, fetch $73,000.

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