Building Name – Niterói Contemporary Art Museum
Location – Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Architect – Oscar Niemeyer
Structure – Bruno Contarini
Year of Project- 1996
Description –
- The sixteen-meter high structure is situated on a paved public square, accessed via a swirling, red-carpeted, 98 meter-long ramp.
- The 50 meter diameter copula contains three floors, set on a 2.7 meter diameter cylinder, anchored in a 60 centimeter deep 817 square meter pool.
- The hexagonal main hall provides 400 square meters of a column-free exhibition space surrounded by a circular viewing promenade with windows slanted at a forty degree angle.
- Speaking of the MAC’s rocky cliffside site, Niemeyer claimed that the “field was narrow, surrounded by the sea and the solution came naturally.”
- This “natural,” intuitive solution was an elegant, curvy structure that rises from a water basin, creating an ambient sense of lightness and allowing for full panoramic views of Sugar-Loaf Mountain and the Guanabara bay.
- Niemeyer’s poetic intention was for the form to emerge “from the ground” and “continuously grow and spread,” like a flower that rises from the rocks.
