Oscar Niemeyer Released from Hospital
John Hill
5. November 2012
Oscar Niemeyer's Converse Collection
The 104-year-old Brazilian architect was hospitalized for two weeks, then released just before his designs for Converse sneakers were launched.
In October 104-year-old architect Oscar Niemeyer was hospitalized in Rio de Janeiro, due to pneumonia and dehydration. The Pritzker Prize-winner was released two weeks later, just in time for the public launch of sneakers he designed for Converse. Pictured is the Chuck Taylor All Star Hi, which features a poem about curves that Niemeyer wrote, and which references his Ibarapuera Auditorium. Yet, according to the Guardian, the architect and former president of the Brazilian Communist party has imbued the designs with political statements. Whatever the case, many architects will be disappointed because the sneakers are only available in Brazil.