Casa das Canoas — São Conrado, Rio de Janeiro

About the building

The Casa das Canoas sits at Estrada das Canoas 2310, up the forested road that climbs from São Conrado toward the Pedra da Gávea hang-gliding ramp. It is the house Oscar Niemeyer designed for his own family: a sinuous concrete roof slab floating over glass walls, with a granite boulder from the site running straight through the living room and into the pool.

The house is one of the most studied residences of twentieth-century architecture and a fixture of every serious survey of Brazilian modernism. It has operated as a visitable house-museum and exhibition space linked to the Niemeyer foundation, and it remains the single most famous address on the Estrada das Canoas.

Address: Estrada das Canoas 2310, São Conrado, Rio de Janeiro

History

Niemeyer designed the house in 1951 and completed it in 1953, deliberately avoiding heavy earthworks: instead of flattening the hillside he curved the roof around the trees and kept the existing granite boulder as the hinge between terrace, pool and living room. He lived there with his family until 1965, when he left Brazil during the military dictatorship.

In 2007, the year of Niemeyer's hundredth birthday, IPHAN federally landmarked the house as part of a group of 35 of his works. It is regularly cited alongside the Farnsworth House and the Glass House in histories of the modern glass residence.

Notable residents

Oscar Niemeyer Architect of Brasília and Brazil's most celebrated modernist; designed the house for himself and lived in it with his family from 1953 until leaving Brazil in 1965.

Source: Wikipédia — Casa das Canoas