Anna Maria beyond Niemeyer: National Congress furniture (1957-1977)

Abstract

The National Congress Palace in Brasília has furniture collections as exquisite as its modernist architecture. Between the late 1950s and 1970s, Anna Maria Niemeyer led these personalized projects for the legislative palace program. The well-deserved notoriety of architect Oscar Niemeyer, Anna's father, as the author of the architectural project, tarnished the valuable collaboration of other professionals who were instrumental in the palace's heritage. This article aims to shed light on the designer's contribution through the furniture collections de-veloped for the National Congress in these decades.  Methodologically, the his-toriographical investigation
of this modern furniture uses the original projects (architecture and furniture), administrative processes and articles by Anna in the magazine Módulo. This examination revealed two interior periods: the sim-ple moment of inauguration in 1960, populated by matching furniture,  and the moment of revisiting these interiors with the art furniture of the late 1970s. If Oscar's exterior architecture remained monumental over the course of these two initial decades, the interior space became monumentalized, with furniture playing a leading role. It is necessary to locate designer Anna Maria Niemeyer in the historiography of modern Brazilian furniture and, as Maria Cecília Loschiavo (2017) states, to make due historical reparation for her contribution.