Edifício Niemeyer (Belo Horizonte)

About this place

The Niemeyer Building is a residential block designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer and built between 1954 and 1960, an icon of Brazilian modernist architecture. It stands on a triangular plot at the corner of Praça da Liberdade and Avenida Brasil, where the old Dolabela Palace once stood, with a curving form and horizontal concrete bands that shade it from the sun; Niemeyer is said to have drawn its curves from the mountains around Belo Horizonte. In the 1950s Lúcia Machado Almeida, sister of the politician Cristiano Machado, commissioned Niemeyer to design a luxury apartment building on her family's plot on the square, and the design was controversial at the time, many objecting to a private residence on a public square. After a halting start it was completed in 1960, with twelve floors and twenty-two apartments, and became home to the city's elite. It is one of the first examples of modernist architecture in Belo Horizonte, finished before Niemeyer's most famous works in Brasília. It is a private residence that cannot be entered, but it is seen from Praça da Liberdade, part of the square's ensemble listed since 1977, and pairs with the museums of the cultural circuit around the square.