Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum

The ministry of foreign affairs

A visit to Oscar Niemeyer
By Åke E:son Lindman

In the spring of 2000, the writer Hedvig Hedqvist and photographer Åke E:son Lindman, traveled to Brazil. The trip was part of an assignment from the Swedish National Property Board and the Department of Foreign Affairs, to document Swedish embassies designed by Swedish architects, a result which was presented in the book Seventeen Swedish Embassies built 1959-2006 (2001). Hedqvist and Lindman saw their trip to Brazil also as an opportunity to study one of the most experimental and artistically bold architect of the modernist era, Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012), up close. With a letter of introduction from Niemeyer himself, Hedqvist and Lindman could enter the congress, senate, and the remarkable Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the capital Brasilia (1957–1960).

Åke E:son Lindman (b.1953) graduated in photography from Konstfack, University of Arts, Crafts and Design in 1975, and has since the 1980s dedicated himself to document our built environment – from the Step Pyramid of Djoser, Saqqara in Egypt, via Nagakin Capsule Tower, Tokyo in Japan, to Caixa Forum, Madrid in Spain. As the leading photographer in Europe on architecture, Lindman’s work has been frequently exhibited and featured in international architectural and design periodicals. Lindman has been the main photographer of over 50 books for publishers such as Birkhäuser (CH), Thames & Hudson (UK) and Bonnier (SE) and a monograph on Lindman’s work, Pure Architecture, was published by Arena in 2010.