Auditoriums in Oscar Niemeyer’s Architecture: Strategies and Persistence of the Concept of Plasticity

Abstract

Oscar Niemeyer contributed to introduce a whole new world of modernist lexicon. The plasticity of reinforced concrete allowed him to explore free forms and continuous spaces. Since 2015, data and information have been collected at the Oscar Niemeyer Foundation, from books and texts published by the architect himself, as well as from scientific publications, resulting in the identification of 503 projects, whose themes range from public administrative buildings, corporate headquarters, housing, and urban plans to buildings for cultural, educational and leisure purposes. An Excel database was created for each of them. We found a predominance of 147 projects with detached auditoriums buildings. On the other hand, out of this total, 108 contained trapezoidal plan, of which 64 had curved roof. Based on these data, we decided to study only trapezoidal auditoriums, convention centers or theaters buildings with curvilinear surface roof. The parametric modeling allowed us to reveal underlying geometrical principles and strategies in Niemeyer’s auditoriums, defining his modus operandi: types of connection between straight lines and tangent circumference arcs. We identified 17 types of auditoriums, as well as fundamental guiding concepts in his writings, especially in his named necessary explanations. As a result, we traced 5 guiding principles for implementing auditoriums in sets of buildings, in addition to the importance of auditoriums. This paper contributes to fill the gap about Niemeyer’s geometric strategies, emphasizing the systematic study of the plasticity of the sculptural forms of his auditoriums.