Who is considered the father of the modern architectural movement in Brazil?

• A. Lucio Costa
• B. Oscar Niemeyer
• C. Kenzo Tange
• D. Buckminster Fuller

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is identifying the figure who helped establish and steer Brazil’s modern architectural language from its early, ambitious stages. Lúcio Costa is seen as the father of the modern movement in Brazil because he played a pivotal role in shaping its direction—promoting a distinctly Brazilian form of modernism through his writings, teaching, and advocacy, and by guiding the Brasilia project from an urban-planning standpoint. His approach connected international modernist ideas with Brazil’s own social and climatic realities, providing a unifying framework that many younger Brazilian architects adopted. Oscar Niemeyer, while the master designer of Brasilia’s iconic buildings, is more about realized form and invention than about initiating the movement itself. Kenzo Tange is a Japanese architect, and Buckminster Fuller is an American designer, so they don’t fit the Brazilian context.