RIO DE JANEIRO — He was eligible for retirement before man set foot on the moon.
He received the highest honor in his field, the Pritzker Prize, months after his 80th birthday. One of his most celebrated works, the Museum of Contemporary Art outside Rio, was inaugurated in 1996, when he was pushing 90.
His fluid Modernist structures have left an indelible mark on the world and how it conceives its urban spaces. Now Oscar Niemeyer -- architect, bon vivant, lifelong Communist, living legend -- is closing in on the century mark. Most of the Brazilian's contemporaries and, more satisfyingly, his critics have died.
But this is not a time for resting on his laurels, even at an age when most overachievers would be lucky to be resting in bed. At 97, Niemeyer is eagerly watching one of his most ambitious projects take shape, a mile-long seafront esplanade of buildings and open space in Niteroi, Rio's sister city across Guanabara Bay.
When completed, Niemeyer Way will house two cathedrals, a theater, film institute, plaza, ferry station, memorial and a foundation named after the architect. Situated on enough land for 15 football fields, the promenade will be Niemeyer's biggest creation after Brasilia, the sleek, futuristic capital he designed in the 1950s and that remains his magnum opus.
When the walkway is finished, Niemeyer will probably be in his early 100s -- and enjoying every minute.
"I take pleasure in working with architecture," he said recently, seated in the airy Copacabana Beach penthouse that has served as his studio for the better part of 50 years. "A man who lives does what he likes -- nothing more."
The description is deceptively modest for someone who has had a profound influence on architecture since his first solo commission 68 years ago. Along with Le Corbusier, who pioneered the Machine Age aesthetics of Modernist design, Niemeyer ranks among the genre's greatest masters, an artist working in reinforced concrete.
He is one of Brazil's most famous and beloved icons, and one of the planet's most famous Brazilians. With the death of American Philip Johnson in January at 98, Niemeyer is the world's oldest practicing architect of international stature. I.M. Pei, 87, is but a younger brother; Frank Gehry, 76, is a mere stripling.
