Hasta La Ideas

Oscar Niemeyer is sad again. And when our favorite grouchy starchitect (“Turning 102 is crap!“) is sad, it makes us sad. Following his battle and subsequent defeat to finish his massive city planning effort in Brasilia, Brazil last year, the city has begun it’s 50th anniversary, leaving Niemeyer to once again envision what could have been. He blames too rapid growth fueled by years of greedy capitalists as the culprit for not maintaining a growing city that he’d planned for under a million people but now exceeds that number several times over. But while he complains, one assumes that he’d still like to attend the celebration of his city; which is the second big tragedy of the hour:

His fear of flying, and the impossibility of him making the 1,400 kilometer (840-mile) car journey to the capital, meant he would watch the celebrations on television, he told AFP in an e-mail interview.

He said staying home would also allow him the time to work on his next jobs, including designing a football stadium “of a rather surprising form.”

Oscar Niemeyer, we love you.

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