Design As Art: Niemeyer Steps Inside
June 2008
Oscar Niemeyer is the sensuous modernist. The Brazilian architect loves curves and swooping forms as much as he loathes the straight lines and rigid angles of more doctrinaire modernists like Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. "We hated Bauhaus," Niemeyer told the Times of London last year. "All they had were rules. Even for knives and forks they created rules."In Brazil, he’s a one-name national hero, on the order of soccer star Pelé, mainly for designing a compound of gleaming, geometric buildings for Brasília, the new national capital improbably carved out of empty uplands in the late 1950s. And Niemeyer has lived to a ripe enough age—he turned 100 last December, and is still actively designing—to enjoy being rediscovered by a new generation that is now embracing him with possibly more fervor than did their parents or grandparents.
Yet in the United States, Niemeyer remains little known. New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman wrote that he "may be the least celebrated of the major architects of the modern era." That’s in large part because his work is hardly represented here. If you don’t count the United Nations building in New York (Niemeyer was part of the team of architects that designed it, but because of his communist sympathies hr was denied entry to the United States during construction), only one building in the United States bears his stamp: a modest modernist home located in the hills of Santa Monica, designed in 1964 and now owned by Michael and Gabrielle Boyd, who live there surrounded by a strong collection of mid-century furniture, which includes a pair of plump leather and molded-wood chairs designed by Niemeyer himself.
And the chairs are nearly as rare as Niemeyer buildings hereabouts. Niemeyer wasn’t associated with furniture design, as were many of his fellow architects—indeed, one could be forgiven for thinking that Marcel Breuer was, in fact, a chair. But from the early 1970s through the early 1990s Niemeyer designed a handful of pieces of furniture that made it into production in Brazil, although in very limited quantities. They never became icons of the design world, like the work of Breuer, Eero Saarinen or Charles and Ray Eames.
"They’re reasonably rare," says Richard Wright, director of Wright, a Chicago-based auction house that specializes in design. "We’ve sold about 15 pieces in the past five years." He says most of the vintage pieces have been versions of the wood-and-leather Niemeyer chair, and prices have risen steadily in recent years, with a chair and ottoman set topping out at $37,000. The balance between supply and demand has favored the latter. "We’ve sold every single piece we’ve offered," Wright says.
That imbalance may soon change, however, as some of Niemeyer’s earlier designs—including hotel furniture that never made it beyond the design phase—come into production in Brazil and make their way to the United States. Over the past few years, dealer Zesty Meyers, co-principal of R 20th Century Design in New York, has worked with the Niemeyer Foundation and Brazilian factories to produce and import a line of about a dozen Niemeyer tables and chairs. Some selections were previewed at Design Miami in late 2006, and the line will be shown at R 20th Century during the upcoming International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York May 17 to 20. The furniture is currently exclusive to R 20th Century in the United States, although the foundation may partner with other galleries in the future. Prices range from $4,000 to $28,000.
The new line is arriving during a time of heightened interest in modern design, and many collectors are eager to go beyond the usual suspects. Sensing this growing appetite, Meyers launched a global search several years ago and found that one name kept resurfacing: Oscar Niemeyer. That, in turn, led him to Brazil, where he was pleasantly surprised to discover a rich heritage of modern design. "Waves of immigration to Brazil have been happening for centuries—from Europe, from the Middle East, from Japan, and much of that has taken place since World War II," he says, noting that these waves have brought a wide range of influences to an already sophisticated local design scene. "What you come up with is a true melting pot of culture."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.