Roberto Burle Marx

Published on the occasion of the exhibition at the Cité de l'architecture & du patrimoine, the catalogue celebrates this interpreter of 20th-century Brazilian culture.

Roberto Burle Marx. The Modernity of Landscape, edited by Lauro Cavalcanti, Farès el-Dahdah, Francis Rambert, fotografie di Leonardo Finotti ACTAR , Cité de l'architecture & du patrimoine, Barcelona 2011 (pp. 350, € 39.00)

"The twentieth-century landscape architect is asked to design many different things - impressive gardens or garden retreats; roadside shoulders, parks and boulevards, commemorative monuments or public areas, botanical gardens and sometimes plant nurseries, which may be objects of extraordinary beauty." The narrating voice of Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) echoes throughout the pages of the catalogue accompanying the exhibit Roberto Burle Marx, the Permanence of the Unstable, held in Paris at the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine after having travelled to Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Berlin. The show celebrates the successful and original landscape practice of a courageous interpreter of 20th century Brazilian culture who was able to combine the exuberance of tropical nature with modernist architectural forms inspired by a deep ecological awareness.

The first pages of the catalogue, published in English and French, contain an evocative portrait of Burle Marx in the greenhouses of Sítio Santo Antônio da Bica, reverberating the unique visual effect generated by the ripados that filter sunlight along with the vitality of an aesthetic experience in which art and nature interact and merge. The multifaceted and fertile approach characterizing the modus operandi of a talented professional - landscape architect, designer, painter, sculptor, expert botanist, musician and designer - is accepted and discussed from different points of view and with interesting interpretations in the various essays contained in this valid publication.
Top image: Avenida Atlântica and Copacabana promenade, Rio de Janeiro, c. 1970. Photograph by Marcel Gautherot, Instituto Moreira Salles.  Above: Roberto Burle Marx during a botanical expedition in Ecuador, 1974. Photograpf by Luiz Correia de Araújo, archive Luiz Correia de Araújo.
Top image: Avenida Atlântica and Copacabana promenade, Rio de Janeiro, c. 1970. Photograph by Marcel Gautherot, Instituto Moreira Salles. Above: Roberto Burle Marx during a botanical expedition in Ecuador, 1974. Photograpf by Luiz Correia de Araújo, archive Luiz Correia de Araújo.
The two introductory texts, including the one by Lauro Cavalcanti who conceived and curated the exhibit, outline Burle Marx's overall biography and recount the creation of an international contemporary lexicon of garden design starting from the aesthetics of the native flora - and the invention of a tropical landscape - whose instability plays a key role along with the permanence of the elements of an indigenous tradition. In his essay, Farès El-Dahdah notes convincingly that Burle Marx's unstable landscapes stimulate the questioning of the relationship between space and time which is the origin of a formal logic based on fluid geometry and careful topology.
Cover of <i>Roberto Burle Marx. The Modernity of Landscape</i>, edited by Lauro Cavalcanti, Farès el-Dahdah, Francis Rambert, photos by Leonardo Finotti ACTAR , Cité de l'architecture & du patrimoine, Barcelona 2011
Cover of Roberto Burle Marx. The Modernity of Landscape, edited by Lauro Cavalcanti, Farès el-Dahdah, Francis Rambert, photos by Leonardo Finotti ACTAR , Cité de l'architecture & du patrimoine, Barcelona 2011
The narrative in the following three sections takes its cue from the translation and presentation of three enlightening and dense lectures in which the Brazilian landscape architect goes straight to the heart of the contemporary debate and points us to a cultural world—not only of landscape architecture but also of literature, history, science—in which the beliefs that made him into a protagonist of a modern approach to landscape design take on their mature form.
The design approach emphasized by Burle Marx in one of his first lectures entitled "Concepts of Composition in Landscape Architecture" (1954) confirms the essential principles and novel goals that are not separated from inspired ecological awareness along with the rigorous educational intent meant to promote the Brazilian landscape as a fundamental component of the country's national identity. Jacques Leenhardt deserves merit in having perceived an aesthetic essentiality in Burle Marx's work that seeks to resolve the tension between local values and universal language and his interest in "a pedagogical and ecological approach that could be seen as the idea of the garden as a microcosm of Brazil."
The landscape architect’s recognized ethical dimension recalls the emergence of a new collective culture driven by an ecological rationale in defence of Brazilian nature.
<i>Pithecolobium tortum series</i>, 1960s. Chinese ink and gouche on paper, 70 x 100,6 cm. Roberto Burle Marx, IPHAN/MinC.
Pithecolobium tortum series, 1960s. Chinese ink and gouche on paper, 70 x 100,6 cm. Roberto Burle Marx, IPHAN/MinC.
The landscape architect's recognized ethical dimension recalls the emergence of a new collective culture driven by an ecological rationale in defence of Brazilian nature. This awareness has its roots in a "science of perception" that José Tabacow, Burle Marx's talented collaborator for nearly twenty years, sees in a scientifically cultivated botanical passion powered by the indispensable partnership with experienced botanists. Tabacow's article also calls into question the fragility of the simplistic analogy between painter and landscape designer that has often been recognized in Burle Marx's professional practice. The garden is exalted as a work of art and, with it, the surrounding landscape that must be reflected in it in an act of reconciliation between nature and artifice which Lars Lerup points out in his essay "Bifurcations."
Burle Marx himself vindicates a highly developed and completely autonomous discipline, which, starting from a living material, is transformed and possesses specific attributes. "The art of designing a garden is one of the most - if not the most - complex of all arts, requiring an understanding of other arts, and a willingness to learn from nature," Burle Marx explains in his lecture "The Garden as Art Form" (1962) which introduces the catalogue's second section. His creative activity, on the edge between art and architecture, generates radically modern forms and unusual visual experiences recognized in his painting, discussed by Lélia Coelho Frota, and in some projects for private gardens, selected and accurately described by André Corrêa do Lago.
Gardens of the Ministry of the Army. Praça des Cristais, Brasilia 1970. Architect: Oscar Niemeyer
Gardens of the Ministry of the Army. Praça des Cristais, Brasilia 1970. Architect: Oscar Niemeyer
"Landscape Architecture in the City" (1983): nature articulated in an urban setting is revealed in the original spatial ideology and the modern compositional significance of the toits-jardin designed by Burle Marx and explored in the catalogue's third section. The formal experiments with the organic garden at the Palácio Capanema (MES) in Rio de Janeiro are prominent in the articles by Dorothée Imbert and Valerie Fraser, who recognize in their design both a tribute to, and critique of, Le Corbusier's rationalist lesson.
The volume concludes with an article by Francis Ramber who moves from a concept of "nature-city" to extend the framework to the contemporary scene through two interesting conversations with Gilles Clément and Patrick Blanc. The botanical richness and deep sensitivity to the architectonic quality of tropical plants identified by these two specialists in the work of the Brazilian landscape architect are represented in the photos taken for the Paris exhibit by Leonardo Finotti. The eloquent photographs, along with the brilliant and extremely elaborate drawings - on display and partly reproduced in the catalogue thanks to Studio Burle Marx & Cia. Ltd still under the leadership of his close associate Haruyoshi Ono - corroborate the tremendous expressive power and quality in the work of a figure who is key for understanding Brazilian modernism. Barbara Boifava
Gardens of the Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (BNDES), Rio de Janerio, 1974 and 1985. Architects: Alfredo Willer, Ariel Steele, Joel Ramalho Jr, José Sanchotene, Leonardo Oba, Rubens Sanchotene and Oscar Müller.
Gardens of the Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (BNDES), Rio de Janerio, 1974 and 1985. Architects: Alfredo Willer, Ariel Steele, Joel Ramalho Jr, José Sanchotene, Leonardo Oba, Rubens Sanchotene and Oscar Müller.

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