The private residence that Oscar Niemeyer created for himself is the House the Canoes (Casa das Canoas), which would later become the headquarters of the Oscar Niemeyer Foundation.

The Casa das Canoas in Rio de Janeiro was designed by Oscar Niemeyer in 1951. It was used as his family house until 1965, the year in which he had to abandon Brazil due to the military dictatorship. Using tropical eroticism as a construction language Niemeyer deconstructed the language of functionalist modern architecture: the curved flat roof supported by light steel columns and the transparent glass walls make the house disappear within the tropical jungle.