In Appreciation of Oscar Niemeyer

When I heard yesterday that the architect Oscar Niemeyer  had died at the age of 104 and I couldn't  help thinking of our modernist pilgrimage to Brasilia, the city he planned from scratch. We've visited lots of places but there's something about Brasilia that stays with you. The playful lines, the vision, the hope, the sense that you're caught in time.

The interior of the cathedral was captivating as you can see below.

Working till the end (even composing samba according to Terri Gross this afternoon) Niemeyer was profiled in the New York Times in 2005, a piece I'm looking forward to rereading . While Brasilia is extraordinary to visit (with one gorgeous building after another) the city is a strange place to navigate, particularly as we tried to do on foot and it was notoriously critiqued for its urban planning failures.

However, despite the critics Niemeyer aesthetic was both extraordinary and distinctive and in appreciation of his genius here are some more photos of Brasilia.

Blind justice outside a court building.

An exterior view of the cathedral.