Oscar Niemeyer - 1980s To 2000

1980s To 2000

In 1988, at 81, Niemeyer was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the most prestigious award in architecture.

From 1992 to 1996, Niemeyer was the president of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB). As a lifelong activist, Niemeyer was chosen as a powerful public figure that could be linked to the party at a time when it appeared to be in its death throes after the demise of the USSR. Although not active as a political leader, his image helped the party to survive through its crisis, after the 1992 split and to remain as a political force in the national scene, which eventually led to its reconstruction. He was replaced by Zuleide Faria de Mello in 1996.

He designed at least two more buildings in Brasilia, small ones, the Memorial dos Povos Indigenas ("Memorial for the Indigenous People") and the Catedral Militar, Igreja de N.S. da Paz.

In 1996, at the age of 89, he created the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum in Niterói, a city next to Rio de Janeiro. The building is cantilevered out from sheer rock face, giving a view of the Guanabara Bay and the city of Rio de Janeiro.