Oscar Niemeyer Quotes

I like talking to priests, to Catholics. Everyone has their beliefs.

Surprise is key in all art.

When students leave college, they are like children who know nothing about the problems of life, and don't have a political stance.

The artistic capability of reinforced concrete is so fantastic - that is the way to go.

There is no reason to design buildings that are more basic and rectilinear, because with concrete you can cover almost any space.

I am a Brazilian before I am an architect. I cannot separate the two.

Architecture is my work, and I've spent my whole life at a drawing board, but life is more important than architecture. What matters is to improve human beings.

Architecture is invention.

It was the drawing that led me to architecture, the search for light and astonishing forms.

Sometimes I lose a whole morning waiting on journalists and other people who look for me. But I always find some time for reading, talking to my friends and feeling what is happening in this world.

Curves are the essence of my work because they are the essence of Brazil, pure and simple.

I search for surprise in my architecture. A work of art should cause the emotion of newness.

My work is not about 'form follows function,' but 'form follows beauty' or, even better, 'form follows feminine.'

I enter my studio at 9 a.m. I have lunch here, I return right away to my work and I go out to dinner at 8 p.m. My daily tasks vary very much.

When I was very little my mother said I used to draw in the air with my fingers. I needed a pencil. Once I could hold one, I have drawn every day since.

When students leave college, they are like children who know nothing about the problems of life, and don't have a political stance.

Surprise is key in all art.

There is no reason to design buildings that are more basic and rectilinear, because with concrete you can cover almost any space.

Humanity needs dreams to be able to survive the miseries of daily existence, even if only for an instant.