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My work is not about "form follows function," but "form follows beauty" or, even better, "form follows feminine."

— Oscar Niemeyer

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Beauty

More quotes by Oscar Niemeyer

Here, then, is what I wanted to tell you of my architecture. I created it with courage and idealism, but also with an awareness of the fact that what is important is life, friends and attempting to make this unjust world a better place in which to live.

The Curves of Time: The Memoirs of Oscar Niemeyer (2000)

My ambition has always been to reduce a building’s support to a minimum. The more we diminish supporting structures, the more audacious and important the architecture is. That has been my life’s work.

It's funny, the power of beauty, to make us forget such injustice. É estranho o poder da beleza, que nos faz esquecer tanta injustiça.

I had some good opportunities. I was lucky to have had the chance to do things differently. Architecture is about surprise.

I was attracted by the curve — the liberated, sensual curve suggested by the possibilities of new technology yet so often recalled in venerable old baroque churches.

The Curves of Time: The Memoirs of Oscar Niemeyer (2000)

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Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil.

Democritus Freeman (1948)

True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.

William Wordsworth

The great artists are the ones who dare to entitle to beauty things so natural that when they're seen afterward, people say: Why did I never realize before that this too was beautiful?

André Gide The Immoralist (1902)

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator.

William Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece (1594)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Oscar Niemeyer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.