Steven Thorpe

I would think they wish this never surfaced again -

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) – Brazil’s most famous architect, Oscar Niemeyer, celebrated his 102nd birthday Tuesday in typical fashion: at work on projects rather than pondering his supercentennial age.

“Turning 102 is crap, and there is nothing to commemorate,” he told AFP.

Niemeyer, who was born in 1907 in Rio de Janeiro, where he still lives, is famed for designing some of Brazil’s most distinctive buildings, among them Rio’s Sambodrome and the nearby Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum, and many of the futuristic edifices of the capital Brasilia.

His inspiration for the domes, curves and sweeping lines that make up his style he has said is “the body of the Brazilian woman.”

Niemeyer has witnessed Brazil’s progression from a chaotic new republic, a 1964-1985 military regime that forced him into exile in Paris, and the increasingly prosperous return to democracy that the country now enjoys.

His conclusion on Tuesday? Brazil is more “egalitarian since a former worker arrived in power,” the former Communist said, referring to Brazil’s current president, former trade union leader and steelworker Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The architect, sitting in his studio overlooking Copacabana beach, explained to AFP that one project he was managing was the renovation of the central avenue of the Sambodrome, where the most famous of Brazil’s glitz-and-flesh Carnival parades are held.

Continue reading – http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091215/en_afp/brazilarchitectureniemeyer_20091215211041

“He is grotesquely overweight. He is childless. He lives in the chilly and undesirable North Pole. He insists on dressing in a bright-red jumpsuit with fur trimmings. He can only ever find employment on one day a year, and, even then, it is night work.

On every accepted level, Santa Claus is a total loser.

Yet this is a man who heads up a brand that commands 98 percent global recognition. Furthermore, he is universally adored.

How does he do it?”

Malcolm Gladwell – http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/12/gladwell-200912