Oscar Niemeyer, the arch-modernist Brazilian architect, died of a respiratory infection on Wednesday, just days shy of his 105th birthday. He had been hospitalized with several minor ailments in the year leading up to his death, but had continued work on numerous projects. The architect was influential in the development of Brazilian modernist architecture in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, which featured graceful, flowing forms in contrast to the more angular style of the time. Niemeyer began practicing architecture in Brazil in the late 1930s and spent most of his life there, except for a period of exile from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, during the country's rule by military dictatorship.

Although best-known for designing the major residential, commercial, and government buildings in Brazil's ultramodern capital Brasí.