Oscar Niemeyer's work is certainly the concretization of his creative genius, but it is also the expression of his ideological commitment and solidarity with social, popular and democratic movements. And the many memorials he designed are proof of it. Nearly centenary, when I interviewed him, Niemeyer was still amazingly able to imagine, to create, to realize; architect, sculptor, designer and even talented writer, a man who felt, even more at the end of his life, the weight of misery and sadness of the world: “...what troubles me more isn't life's challenges, but the boundless misery of the poor, faced with the indifferent smile of men...”.