Side Gallery

Oscar Niemeyer (Rio de Janeiro RJ 1907 - Rio de Janeiro RJ 2012) was one of the greatest Brazillian architects and urbanists. He is celebrated in Brazil and across the world for his extraordinary work. Niemeyer may be known for his acclaimed architecture, but his lesser-known qualities are his relentless desire to design and his determination to resist conformity.

Niemeyer graduated in architecture from the National School of Fine Arts (Enba), in Rio de Janeiro, in 1934. That same year, he worked for the architect and urban planner Lucio Costa (1902-1998). In 1936, the office was commissioned to create plans for the Ministry of Education and Health (MES), in Rio de Janeiro, under the supervision of the French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier(1887-1965), whom Niemeyer assisted, as a draftsman. Based on the architect's design, Niemeyer suggested changes that were consequently implemented into the construction of the building. Between 1940 and 1944, at the request of mayor Belo Horizonte, Juscelino Kubitschek (1902-1976), Niemeyer designed the Pampulha Architectural Ensemble, which is considered a landmark of his work. It breaks with the strict concepts of functionalism, using a new language of forms, curved surfaces, and explores the possibilities of reinforced concrete. In 1947, he was invited by the United Nations (UN) to participate in the commission of architects in charge of outlining the plans for New York's future headquarters. His plans, conceptualized by Le Corbusier, were chosen as the basis for the final project. 

In Rio de Janeiro, in 1955, he founded the magazine Módulo. The President of the Republic, Juscelino Kubitschek, invited Niemeyer to collaborate on Lucio Costa's urban design of the new capital of Brazil, Brasília, the following year.  In 1958, he was appointed chief architect of Brasília, where he transferred to and remained until 1960. Some of Niemeyer's more notable projects are Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo, 1951, the headquarters of the French Communist Party, Paris, 1965 Algiers School of Architecture, Algeria, 1968 the headquarters of Editora Mondadori, Milan, Italy, 1968 and the headquarters of the newspaper L'Humanité, Saint-Denis, France, 1987.

Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (Switzerland in 1887, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin France, 1965) who chose to be known as Le Corbusier was an architect, urban planner, painter, writer, designer, designer and theorist, who was most prolific in France.

In 1922, Le Corbusier, with his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret opened an architectural studio in Paris at 35 rue de Sèvres, a partnership that would last until 1940. They began experimenting with furniture design and invited the architect Charlotte Perriand to join the studio in 1928. Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand presented several works the following year, including (a big and small versión) the Grand Confort armchair, a chaise longue, a table, and standard storage units at the Salon d'Automne in an installation titled Equipment for the Home.

For Le Corbusier, the proportion was always the central focus of his design philosophy. His confidence in the mathematical order of the universe was closely bound to the golden section, which he explicitly used in his Modulor system for the scale of architectural proportion. He saw this system as a continuation of the long tradition of Vitruvius, Leonardo da Vinci and Leon Battista Alberti, and others who used the proportions of the human body to improve the appearance and function of architecture. His work on The Villa Savoye (1929-1931) illustrates the ideas that Le Corbusier' had been developing throughout the 1920s in his publications "Five points of architecture" and "Vers une architecture."

After World War II, Le Corbusier dedicated time to find the most efficient way to house large numbers of people in response to the housing crisis across many cities of the world. He thought that his new, modern architectural forms would provide solutions that would raise the quality of life for the lower classes. Le Corbusier was at his most influential in urban planning and was a founding member of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM). He realized some of his urban planning schemes on a small scale by constructing a series of unités (housing block units) around France. The most famous of these was the Unité d'Habitation of Marseilles (1946-1952). In the 1950s, a unique opportunity arose, allowing him to transform his concept on a larger scale. It was the construction of Chandigarh, India.

His visionary books, bright white houses, and progressive urban plans set him at the head of the modern movement in the 1920s, while in the 1930s, he became more of a complex and skeptical explorer of cultural and architectural possibilities. Le Corbusier frequently shifted position, serving as an 'Old Master' of the establishment of modern architecture and as an unpredictable and charismatic leader for the young.

Before his death in 1965, he established the Foundation Le Corbusier in Paris to look after and make his library, architectural drawings, sketches, and paintings available to scholars.

Gino Sarfatti (September 16, 1912, Venice, Italy – March 6, 1985, Griante, Como, Italy) was an Italian who became known for his talent as a lighting designer. He was the founder of the light manufacturing company Arteluce.

He was born into a family of relative wealth, his father, Riccardo Sarfatti, was a prosperous Jewish food trader, and his mother, Lucia Zuccoli, was from a prominent Catholic family of Trieste. In 1930, Gino moved to Genova to enroll in the Faculty of Aeronaval Engineering.

In 1935, the League of Nations placed a sea embargo on Italy as a reaction to Mussolini’s government, and the Sarfatti family’s economic situation worsened considerably. At 23, Gino Sarfatti left his studies and moved to Milan, where he founded the lighting company Lumen in 1936 in partnership with Aldo Valcarenghi and Dino Mondolfi. Three years later, Sarfatti decided to part ways with his partners and founded the light manufacturing company Arteluce in February 1939.

To support his vision to modernize lighting design, Gino Sarfatti quickly opened Arteluce’s first store in Milan at the centric, and trendy Corso Littorio 12 location (now Corso Matteotti), and, in 1940, Arteluce participated in the VII Triennale di Milano. During this time, Arteluce also became a frequent meeting place for many leading Italian mid-century designers, including Franco Albini, Gianfranco Frattini, Ico Parisi, and Vittorio Vigano. However, the situation in Italy was also changing. In 1943, Gino Sarfatti was forced by the racial laws of the Fascist government to leave Milan and fled with his family to Switzerland, leaving his bookkeeper and secretary, Pinuccia Azzaroni Bassani, to manage the day-to-day activities of Arteluce. Gino Sarfatti and his family returned to Milan in 1946, immediately after the Liberation.

In 1950, Gino Sarfatti embarked on a transformative research journey to the United States. During his creative leave, he handed the role of artistic director to Vittoriano Vigano, who contributed his own design imprint to the brand by using metal cones and shapes to shed and project light along large arms, a feature of significance to Arteluce’s future aesthetic. In 1951, nine Arteluce models participated in the IX Triennale di Milano, and in 1952 Franco Albini included 12 Arteluce lights at the Paris exhibition of Italian Decorative Arts. In 1953, Gino Sarfatti decided that, after 14 years, his store needed a new look; thus he chose Marco Zanuso to orchestrate the reformation.

In 1954 and 1955, Sarfatti received numerous international awards, including two Compasso d’Oro awards for his lamp designs for models 559 and 1055. In 1958, he designed the renowned Pendant lamp for Arteluce. In 1962, Sarfatti decided to open a larger shop on Via della Spiga in Milan, but this time designed by Vittorio Vigano.

During the 1960s, Arteluce’s business multiplied with its home lighting designs sold in Italy and internationally and with its custom Gino Sarfatti lighting designs for public buildings. As other important Italian designers, such as Nino Zoncada, Gustavo Pulitzer-Finale, Paolo de Poli, Pietro Chiesa, and Gio Ponti, during this time, Gino Sarfatti, through Arteluce, became involved in many interior and furniture design projects for the rapidly growing industry of Italian ocean liners.

By the late 1960s, the density of Arteluce’s business had grown substantially and needed a much larger managerial team. His sons and daughter-in-law joined the company, but Gino Sarfatti decided to sell Arteluce to FLOS in 1973 at the peak of its sales and profits.

Gino Sarfatti retired to live in Lake Como with Angela Regiroli and their daughter Micol, where he preserved a private life away from the design community.