Oscar Niemeyer Talks About Brasilia, Communism, Regrets

Oscar Niemeyer has spent 70 years designing buildings around the world, from the United Nations in New York to many of the key edifices of Brasilia, Brazil’s capital. He’s not the retiring type.

Now 97, the famed architect still goes to work every morning at his spacious Rio de Janeiro penthouse studio. There, he has a panoramic view of Copacabana Beach and Sugar Loaf Mountain. In the distance, you can see his distinctive flying-saucer-like building on a pedestal that is part of a cultural complex in Niteroi that was built in the mid-1990s and is still expanding.