PA3-VIEWS
PA3-VIEWS
I have chosen to talk about the Superior Electoral Court in Brazil. Located close to the city center, this building was one of the last projects Niemeyer executed, before passing away in 2012. The building was finished in 2011. Here are three shots of the building from three different viewpoints that allow us to accurately picture it.
Oscar Niemeyer was known as the Brazilian king of curves. His works are not only well structured, but beautiful too, and this beauty we percieve comes mostly fom his famous curves, and how the human eye reacts to seeing curves in such large buildings.»What attracts me are free and sensual curves, the curves we find in mountains, in the waves of the sea, in the body of the women that we love.» This quote is proof of his dislike of right angles, and explains why almost all of his projects contain curved elements. The birds eye view of this building is undeniably shaped like a wave, but why? If we move only a couple streets to the south, we can find the exact shape the bi¡uilding is mimicking, in the river. I found this detail very interesting, and have been interested in buildings based on geographical elements, ever since I learnt the arqueological museum of Cartagena mimicks the waves of coast, close to it.
Three semispheres can be seen, sticking out of the floor, next to the main building. Adjacent to them, a set of stairs for each one. To my surprise, the actual court hearings happen in these shperes, in chambers underground. The spheres are actually their ceilings (bovedas) which optimize the reverberation of sound in the chamber. But what caught my attention was not the use of the spheres for projection of sound, but the fact that the main chambers and the main building are connected underground, instead of conventionally conecting them overground. But then again conventionally was a word niemeyer disliked. Another aspect that interested me was the use of materials. All the way from the first floor to the penultimate, the exterior walls are glass panes, some curved others straight, but purely glass. The other material being used in the exterior fachade, has a very clean tone of white. These materials interested me, because the first impression i had observing this building was remarkably positive. The building is practically see-through, due to the glass panes, which conveys a sense of transparency in the work being done there, and, the colour white in the rest of the fachade conveys purety and innocence. I can only theorise, that this transparency and cleanness was specifically asked for by the Brazilian goverment, and this use of materials was Niemeyers way of achieving these demands.
SOURCES
-https://www.google.es/maps/@-15.8105044,-47.8711877,195m/data=!3m1!1e3 GOOGLE MAPS VIEW OF THE BUILDING
-https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csyp67 PODCAST ABOUT NIEMEYER AND HIS STYLE
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Oscar_Niemeyer_works A LIST OF NIEMEYERS WORKS OVER THE YEARS