Meyers worked out an agreement with the factory and the foundation to produce furniture in Brazil using the same lustrous native woods, such as imbuia and pau ferro, that Niemeyer has long favored.

Niemeyer’s furniture is highly appealing to collectors, Meyers says, in part because it so closely mimics his architecture. By way of example, he points out that the gracefully splayed panels that support his pau ferro round-top dining table slyly mimic the astonishing, iconic inverted buttresses on his acclaimed Brasília Cathedral. But it’s not all self-referential. Hidden within the designs, Meyers says, one can spot nods to classic European influence, with baroque forms hidden in plain sight among the modern curves.

But what shines through most abundantly in Niemeyer’s work is a sensuality uncommon in the more austere, at times chilly, creations of many modernist designers, who often seemed to be creating more for the intellect than for the soul. "I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man," Niemeyer wrote in his memoir The Curves of Time (2000). "I am attracted to free-flowing, sensual curves. The curves that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuousness of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean and on the body of the beloved woman. Curves make up the entire universe, the curved Universe of Einstein." It’s a universe, it turns out, that can now fit in your living room.

Wayne Curtis writes for publications such as Preservation, American Archeology and The New York Times.