O Edifício Niemeyer e o Movimento Moderno na Praça da Liberdade, em Belo Horizonte

The discussion we aim to open when dealing with the Niemeyer Building, as a great expression of the Modern Movement, in its relationship with the historicist pre-existence of Liberdade Square, is based on the theme that addresses and discusses the interactions between new architectures and pre-existences consolidated from the evaluation of the quality of projects and their achievements – as an essential requirement when looking for interfaces between architecture and built and urban heritage. Generally there are several modalities of design actions possible in each specific situation, and it is up to the architect to have the critical discernment to judge the potentiality of the architectural and urban ensembles so that his intervention proposal does not inhibit, fragment or destroy the existing landscape unit, seized through image emanating from the affected objects. Therefore, the theoretical-critical and technical knowledge of the area of safeguarding material heritage – and more specifically, the architectural and the city environment – is very important, but it is not enough to guarantee the relevance of the proposal. The architect's sensitivity and his ability to understand and grasp the essential characteristics and values of the place are often more relevant to achieving coherence in project design and contributing to the qualification of the pre-existing scenario – that is, by preserving and altering it by creating new focuses of attention, or by promoting a redefinition of the previously captured figurative reality. Even architects who are not well versed in the theoretical-critical debate of architecture and urbanism, who have no intimacy with knowledge of the history of architecture and the city, can produce works that consistently emerge in delicate and consolidated historical-cultural urban fabrics, action taken through the unique ability to read the surrounding landscape: in our judgment, is the case of Niemeyer and his project for the apartment building built in Liberdade Square in Belo Horizonte..