Popular Culture and High Art in the Work Of Oscar Niemeyer

Resumen

In his early domestic architecture, Oscar Niemeyer following the footsteps of Le Corbusier “monumentalized” the modernist and the Brazilian. Niemeyer’s later work is a more aggressive interactive process: the manipulation of popular traditions for the ideological purposes of populist politics. Niemeyer has reshaped the ritual of the carnival festival by creating a unique space for its yearly celebration: the “Sambódromo.” The institutionalization of the samba parade into a fixed architectural contex implies a demagogic (elite-controlled) restructuring of popular ritual.