Saving Corbusier and Niemeyer

On Sunday UNESCO's World Heritage Committee inscribed four new sites on the World Heritage List: The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement (Argentina, Belgium, France, Germany, India, Japan, Switzerland); Antigua Naval Dockyard and Related Archaeological Sites (Antigua and Barbuda); Pampulha Modern Ensemble (Brazil); and Khangchendzonga National Park (India).

Of particular interest are the 17 sites comprising five decades of output by Le Corbusier and the four buildings Oscar Niemeyer designed for a development in Belo Horizonte in the 1940s.

Of the 17 Le Corbusier buildings, ten of them are located in France. These inlcude Maisons La Roche et Jeanneret, Cité Frugès, Villa Savoye, Immeuble locatif à la Porte Molitor, Unité d’habitation Marseille, La Manufacture à Saint- Dié, Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp, Cabanon de Le Corbusier, Couvent Sainte-Marie-de-la-Tourette, and Maison de la Culture de Firminy. From there, two buildings are located in Switzerland (Petite villa au bord du lac Léman, Immeuble Clarté) and one each in Argentina (Maison du docteur Curutchet), Belgium (Maison Guiete), Germany (Maisons de la Weissenhof-Siedlung), India (Complexe du Capitole) and Japan (Musée National des Beaux-Arts de l’Occident).

Per UNESCO, these buildings "reflect the solutions that the Modern Movement sought to apply during the 20th century to the challenges of inventing new architectural techniques to respond to the needs of society. These masterpieces of creative genius also attest to the internationalization of architectural practice across the planet."

Oscar Niemeyer's Pampulha Modern Ensemble was designed as a cultural and leisure center with buildings surrounding an artificial lake. These include a casino, a ballroom, the Golf Yacht Club and the São Francisco de Assis church. Per UNESCO, "The Ensemble comprises bold forms that exploit the plastic potential of concrete, while fusing architecture, landscape design [by Roberto Burle Marx], sculpture and painting into a harmonious whole. It reflects the influence of local traditions, the Brazilian climate and natural surroundings on the principles of modern architecture."

Further, the ensemble is important for bringing Niemeyer into contact with Juscelino Kubitschek, who was mayor of Belo Horizonte at the time and his client on the project. Kubitschek subsequently hired Niemeyer to renovate his own house and, when he became president of Brazil, he turned to Niemeyer once again for the buildings of Brasília, which were added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1987.