Alex Bozikovic's review of the book Canadian Modern Architecture: 1967 to the Present raises something potentially troubling. Here's what I'm talking about:

It is by turns an exhilarating and depressing narrative: Canada, in this book, appears as a country that announced itself on the world stage in the 1960s and 1970s with incredible ambition but, since then, has retreated toward the mean.

It is potentially troubling not only because I believe in the value of good design, but because I believe that architecture embodies the ethos and cultural context in which it was created.

And so if you believe that our architectural ambitions have retreated toward mediocrity, you might also surmise that our overall level of ambition has retreated toward the same.

That should be viewed as a serious problem.

In the 1940's, Juscelino Kubitschek invited Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer to design a new planned suburb north of Belo Horizonte called Pampulha. Kubitschek was mayor at the time and Niemeyer was a young modernist architect in his 30's. This was the start of an important relationship.

The "Pampulha architectural complex" was completed in 1943 and was widely praised by the international design community. It was included in a 1943 exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York called "Brazil Builds."

This was an important exhibition for Brazilian architecture and for modernism in general because it demonstrated that the European principles of modernism were traveling (Brazil was one of the first to adopt), and they were evolving. Brazilian architects, such as Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa, had begun to regionalize it and make it their own.

A Brazilian style of modernism was emerging.

By 1956, Niemeyer had become a key figure in the world of modern architecture. At the same time, Juscelino Kubitschek had just become the 21st president of Brazil. Shortly after assuming the position, he would ask Niemeyer to help build a new capital city for the country. This was the birth of Brasilia. Niemeyer designed the buildings. And Costa planned its streets.

A few years before this, Niemeyer would also return to Belo Horizonte to design the "Niemeyer apartment building" at the Praça da Liberdade in the center of the city (and pictured above). It is quintessentially Niemeyer: curved & feminine. Niemeyer despised right angles. He found them harsh and manmade. Everything that is beautiful in nature -- from the mountains of Brazil to the curves of a woman -- was, in his view, sinuous.

But the other thing I really appreciate about it is how its "brise soleils" play with your perception of the building. The building is only 10 storeys. But the sun shades, which some of you may read as balconies, make it look much taller (albeit with some minuscule floor-to-floor heights). The reality is that each floor is made up of 3 breaks. And the overall effect is magical (again, see above photo).

Here is a great video tour of the building by Maíra Lemos, which includes a walkthrough of two of the apartments (note the antechamber in the first). This entire post was to get you ready to watch it. Click here if you can't see it below. (Also, if I made videos, I would want them to be like this one.)

Image: Screen grab from the video

Architect I.M. Pei died this week in New York City. He was 102. Being a centenarian is noteworthy enough. He was born in Hong Kong in 1917. I would love to join that club. Imagine how much change he experienced throughout his life. But, of course, Pei was also a celebrated Pritzker Prize winning architect. For those of you in Toronto, you can look to Commerce Court West to see an example of his work (Page & Steele was the local architect). Completed in 1972, it was the tallest building in Canada until 1976. But perhaps his most well known project is the Louvre Pyramid in Paris (pictured above). In reading some of his obituaries, I was intrigued -- but in no way surprised -- to learn that the Louvre Pyramid was deeply hated by Parisians at the time it was being proposed and built. Supposedly, for the first few years after completion, Pei couldn't walk the streets of Paris without people berating him. However, if you surveyed Parisians today, I would bet you that the approval rating of the Pyramid would be extremely high. And I would also argue that it has since become one of Paris' most globally recognizable symbols. (Parisians, please weigh in below in the comments.) All of this, once again, suggests to me that we're often not very good at evaluating the merits of things that are new to us. Pei's Pyramid, beyond being a new circulation strategy for the broader complex, was a radically different style of architecture. Appreciating that sometimes requires a bit of time. Photo by Uriel Soberanes on Unsplash