Oscar Niemeyer - Personal Life

Personal Life

Niemeyer married Annita Baldo in 1928. They had one daughter, Ana Maria and subsequently five grandchildren, thirteen great-grandchildren and seven great-great grandchildren. His grandchildren are the photographer Carlos Eduardo "Kadu" Niemeyer, Ana Lúcia and Ana Elisa (from Anna Maria's marriage to Walter da Silva Attademo), Carlos Oscar Niemeyer and Ana Cláudia (from Anna Maria's relationship with Carlos Magalhães Silveira.

He was widowed after 76 years of marriage to Annita, Annita died in 2004 at 93 years old. Also his brother Paulo Niemeyer died.

In 2006, shortly before his 99th birthday, Niemeyer married longtime aide Vera Lucia Cabreira. They married at his apartment in Rio de Janeiro's Ipanema district a month after fracturing his hip in a fall.

In December 2008 when he turned 101, Niemeyer was recovering in hospital from December 16 to December 27.

In 2009, before he turned 102, Niemeyer was again hospitalized, this time for 4 weeks, in the same hospital, with gallstones and an intestinal tumor, which was surgically removed. He was quoted as saying that being hospitalized is 'a very lonely thing; I needed to keep busy, keep in touch with friends, maintain my rhythm of life.'

On June 6, 2012, his daughter Anna Maria Niemeyer died of emphysema at the age 82 in Rio de Janeiro, where she had been hospitalised since June 1.

Oscar Niemeyer is a keen smoker of cigars, smoking more in later life. His architectural studio is a smoking zone.

As an atheist, he is philosophical about life and death: "Things are difficult. You get older and find yourself saying goodbye to people. Life doesn't make a lot of sense. But it's more meaningful if the will to be useful and to help your neighbour predominates. Human beings have to be realistic. We live, die and see others die – at the very least there should exist a spirit of solidarity."