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First ministry building, from across esplanade, depicting blank southwest façade facing esplanade and circulation tower in profile; In his elegant and original designs for the main public buildings of Brasília, Niemeyer produced a grand-scale architectural expression of Costa's lucid urban plan, with five identical ten-storey ministerial blocks marching up each side of the Esplanada dos Ministérios to the Congresso Nacional at the apex of the Praça dos Três Poderes, flanked by the Supreme Court and presidential offices. Nothing can be added or taken away from the conceptual whole of Niemeyer's design, which here gives formalism an urban as well as an architectural mode. Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.groveart.com/ (accessed 12/2/2007)