Oscar Niemeyer Museum, Art museum in Curitiba, Brazil.
The Oscar Niemeyer Museum is an art museum in Curitiba, Brazil, with two buildings linked by an underground passage on a large plot. The eye-shaped annex made of concrete and glass sits above a shallow water basin and appears to float.
The first building was designed by Oscar Niemeyer in 1967 and opened in 1978 as the Edifício Presidente Humberto Castelo Branco, an education institute with a 65-metre free span. The museum opened on 22 November 2002 as the Novo Museu; after the eye-shaped annex was completed, it was reinaugurated on 8 July 2003 under its current name, honouring Niemeyer, who finished the project at 95.
Locals call it Museu do Olho, the Eye Museum, after the annex's shape, and MON for short. The museum focuses on visual arts, architecture and design. In 2022 it received the Poty Lazzarotto collection of 4,500 works, the largest single donation in its history.
The museum is temporarily closed at the moment, so checking for updates before visiting makes sense. The entrance to the main building sits on the north side, while the annex remains accessible through the underground passage.
The underground passage links both structures beneath open ground and saves space for green areas on the surface. Some visitors only notice when leaving the first building that they entered the second one without stepping outside.
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