Tastefully designed parks that display an abundance of typical Brazilian flora lighten up quite a few Brazilian cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Brasília. Many of them are designs by arguably Brazil's greatest landscape architect: Roberto Burle Marx [1909-1994]. He designed contemporary landscape gardens for private residences, public buildings, as well as extensive parks that are the lungs of densely populated cities, as well as spaces for their inhabitants to connect with nature.
Contemporary Brazilian landscape architects of the twentieth century
Two of Brazil's well-known architects of Burle Marx's time are Lúcio Costa [1902-1998] – architect and urban planner – and Oscar Niemeyer [1907-], one of world's leading architects. It is therefore no coincidence that these three men worked together on many projects, such as Pampulha in Belo Horizonte and Brasília, Brazil's capital. Throughout the twentieth century, the three of them were the main contributors to the modern architecture movements of the country. For Burle Marx this consisted in landscaping, together with his work as a painter and sculptor.
Burle Marx's early contemporary landscape architecture
A significant project of Burle Marx in the 1930s was the roof gardens of MEC, the Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro. It was a breakthrough in landscape architecture to combine a stark, black and white building with a roof that became an explosion of primary colours, organic shapes and tropical plants. Until today this is considered on of the most eye-catching, modernist landscape designs in Brazil.
The purchase of a large estate Barra de Guaratiba in Rio de Janeiro, was the start of Burle Marx's lifelong experiments with nature. In his garden he observed and cultivated Brazilian tropical and coastal plants. His arboretum, also called "Jardín de las Maravillas" houses 35,000 different species. In 1985, he donated his botanical garden to the Brazilian government and it is open to visitors.
What made Burle Marx’s landscape architecture unique
It was exactly this incorporation of Brazilian flora [especially from the Amazon] into Brazilian gardens that gave Burle Marx his fame and became the distinctive characteristic of his work. Until he demonstrated the richness of their native flora, Brazilians still laid out their gardens according to European design, for which they imported European plants. In this respect it is understandable that Burle Marx only discovered the richness of the Brazilian flora when he was a student in Germany and visited the Berlin botanical gardens.
The 1950s gave Brazilians a new sense of national awareness, of being proud of the country they lived in. Having a landscape garden with native species fitted that image, and Burle Marx quickly became Brazil's highly popular landscape architect.
Geometric compositions in landscape designs
In the 1960s Burle Marx's designs started to incorporate geometrical compositions. This introduced a new type of urban design, which was a welcome addition to the fast-growing cities of Brazil. Burle Marx searched for a balance between densely populated areas and the availability of nature through the creation of parks and open spaces.
A famous example of the latter is the Copacabana promenade in Rio de Janeiro [1970], known for its four kilometres long mosaic sidewalk of calçada Portuguesa along the entire length of that beach – a style that has been copied in many towns but that never reaches the grandeur of Copacabana because of its scale.
Landscape architecture by Burle Marx in Brazil
Some other landscape designs of Roberto Burle Marx in Brazil are:
- Garden of Casa Forte in Recife [1935]
- Conjunto da Pampulha in Belo Horizonte [1942]
- Zoo da Quinta da Boa Vista in Rio de Janeiro [1946]
- Parque do Flamengo in Rio de Janeiro [1957]
- Garden of Centro Cívico in Santo André, São Paulo [1967]
- The landscape around the church and chapels of Basílica Bom Jesus de Matosinhos in Congonhas [1968]
- Garden of Petrobrás, Rio de Janeiro [1969]
- Palácio do Itamaraty and Palácio da Justiça in Brasília [1965/1970]
The burle-marxii species
Besides the Brazilian [tropical] forest, Burle Marx enjoyed Brazil's coastal regions, especially those between Paraná and Bahia, where he found inspiration for new ideas and searched for undiscovered species. On one of these expeditions in Espírito Santo, in the region of Venda Novo, he discovered a plant with a light purple flower unknown to him.
Burle Marx wasn't a botanist and never hesitated to seek help of experts in identifying plants. According to the renowned botanist Helen Kennedy this was indeed a species not yet identified by botanical scientists. The plant was named after him: calathea burle - marxii.
The name burle-marxii has been given to a large collection of heliconias in honour of Burle Marx. Among the burle-marxii species are the heliconia burle-marxii, the broméolia orthophytum burle-marxii, and the vellozia burle-marxii – the latter is typical of Minas Gerais, Goiás and Bahia's rugged regions. Throughout his life about thirty plants were named after Burle Marx.
Burle Marx – Brazil's 20th century modernist landscape architect
Burle Marx discovered a new Brazilian wealth that was simply there for the taking. By using the various shapes, colours and sizes offered to him by nature, in unique, daring designs he earned his place along Brazil's other famous architectures of the 20th century, Oscar Niemeyer and Lúcio Cósta.
sources:
- Roberto Burle Marx Arte & Paisagem, José Tabacow, 204 – Livros Studiu Nobel Ltda, ISBN 85-7553-051-8
- Brazilië, by Marcel Bayer, Dominicus ISB 978 90 257 4298 0 / nur 515
Karin-Marijke Vis - Karin-Marijke Vis is a bilingual writer (Dutch-English) who has been traveling in Asia and South America since 2003.
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