Doctor Fernando Gjorup, from Samaritano hospital where Niemeyer was readmitted last Friday, said however that the Brazilian icon "is lucid and breathing without a ventilator."

A hospital statement did not say when the architect, who was hospitalized after a bout of dehydration, would be released.

Hailed as the father of Brazilian architecture, Niemeyer has been hospitalized several times over the past years.

He is best known for having designed the capital city Brasilia in 1960, among 600 other works around the world over the course of a storied career.

He currently has some 20 projects underway in several countries.

He won the Pritzker prize, considered the Nobel for architecture, in 1988.