Casa do Baile, Pampulha

In the 1940s, Oscar Niemeyer designed a number of modernist buildings on the shores of an artificial lake at Pampulha, part of the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte.

I already posted pictures of the Igreja de São Francisco de Assis and this is the Casa do Baile, originally a casino, which was built in the same year as the church, 1943.

The building is circular with this curving covered walkway along the side of the lake.

Inside on the wall there are some Niemeyer drawings and a quote linking the development at Pampulha in the 1940s to Niemeyer's development of Brasilia in the 1960s.

Niemeyer's quote, translated from Portuguese, goes something like this …

Pampulha was the beginning of Brasilia.
The same problems, the same rush, the same enthusiasm.
And its success influenced, with certainty, in the determination with which JK* constructed the new capital.

*JK - Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, Mayor of Belo Horizonte in the 1940s and then President of Brazil when Brasilia was developed in the 1950s and 60s.

Reference:
Casa do Baile, GuidaBH.com.br

Igreja de São Francisco de Assis, Pampulha

Oscar Niemeyer designed this little Modernist church in 1943, A Igreja de São Francisco de Assis, on the shores of a man-made lake in Pampulha, a suburb of Belo Horizonte. Niemeyer designed a number of other buildings in Pampulha and it was a forerunner for his designs in Brasilia.

The distinctive blue tiles were created by artist Candido Portinari.

Reference:
Igreja São Francisco de Assis, AgendaBH.com.br