Purple Diary [ April 3 ] : Travel

The French Communist Party headquaters was designed by Oscar Niemeyer in 1965 when the Brazilian architect spent a few years in France to escape his country’s military dictatorship. Symbolizing the round stomach of a pregnant woman (with both intimate and ideological meaning), the white dome is an underground conference room connected to the building by a long hallway. At age 101, Niemeyer is still living in Rio de Janeiro. Olivier Zahm