Oscar Niemeyer Dead at 104

Architect who designed Brazil's capital

The legendary Oscar Niemeyer has died, just shy of his 105th birthday. Even in the last few days of his life, the Brazilian architect who designed his country's futurist capital kept working from his Copacabana beach penthouse apartment in Rio de Janeiro. He was considered a national icon.

Niemeyer's legacy is heavily associated with his communist views. He was an enemy of Brazil's military dictatorship from the nineteen-sixties to the eighties. Starting in the 1930s, his style evolved toward rounded buildings. His work added sensuality to modernism and fired a global enthusiasm, though his politics meant there were stretches when he was marginalised.