(b Paris, 23 Feb 1904; d 1992). Brazilian architect and teacher. He graduated in 1932 from the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro, where he participated in the reforms (1930–31) of Lúcio Costa when Modernist teachers including Gregori Warchavchik were introduced. He then worked for a construction company in Rio and designed some houses and blocks of flats. In 1936 he entered private practice and joined the team that developed the design for the Ministry of Education and Health (1936–45; now the Palácio da Cultura; see BRAZIL, fig. 5) in Rio with Le Corbusier; led by Lúcio Costa, it also included Carlos Leão (1906–82), Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Ernani Vasconcelos (1912–87) and Oscar Niemeyer. This building introduced Le Corbusier’s rationalist principles of Modernism to Brazil, influencing the work of all its young architects thereafter. Moreira, however, was the only one who did not subsequently move away from Le Corbusier’s original postulates, becoming perhaps their most representative exponent in Brazil. He continued to use simple, prismatic shapes, never accepting the free structural forms developed by Oscar Niemeyer at Pampulha (1942–4), and he advised his students to avoid originality for its own sake as this would lead to unfortunate results for the less experienced.

• Moreira, Jorge (Machado)
  • collaboration
    • Brazil, §IV, 2(ii): Architecture: Modernism, 1920–60
    • Costa, Lúcio
    • Niemeyer, Oscar, §1: Education and early work, to c 1940
    • Reidy, Affonso Eduardo