Parting shot

摘要

This spectacular photograph of the Towers of Congress in Brasilia, taken from the Federal Supreme Court, is the result of a perfect marriage between the work of a great architect, Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2013), and that of a talented amateur photographer, Monica Pidgeon (1913-2009). Pidgeon, born Monica Lehmann in Chile, returned to South America in 1962, and took a number of remarkable shots of Brazil's recently completed capital. Her interest in Brasilia had already produced an article in the November 1958 issue of Architectural Design - which Pidgeon had been editing since 1946 - featuring a discussion on the problems of capital cities between Brasilia's chief urban planner Lucio Costa, Denys Lasdun, Peter Smithson and Arthur Korn, chair of MARS town planning sub-committee. The article was illustrated by Costa's sketches and photographs of models of Niemey-er's buildings, as well as two sets of plans for the reconstruction of Berlin's city centre, one by Korn and Stephen Rosenberg and the other by Alison and Peter Smithson.