About
Roberto
Burle Marx
Roberto Burle Marx (1909–1994) was a Brazilian landscape designer, artist, collector and conservationist whose work transformed modern landscape architecture.
His use of Brazil’s native flora, combined with his engagement with modernist abstraction, introduced a new vocabulary to garden and public-space design. Working in dialogue with architecture and the specific conditions of each site, he used plants, water, paving, topography, colour and form as elements of spatial composition.
Beyond landscape, his activities spanned the visual and applied arts, botanical exploration, collecting and conservation. He took part in expeditions throughout Brazil, collected and cultivated plants, assembled extensive collections of art and objects, and advocated the conservation of Brazil’s natural environments.
The Artist and Designer
Burle Marx was an artist whose practice encompassed painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, tapestry, jewellery, stage design and landscape design. Throughout his work, he explored colour, form, texture and rhythm, moving between geometric and gestural abstraction and forms rooted in his close observation of nature.
His work across different media was neither hierarchical nor simply transferable from one discipline to another. Painting was not a preparation for landscape, nor was landscape an extension of painting. Each demanded its own materials, techniques and means of expression, yet all belonged to the same sustained process of artistic enquiry.
In landscape, these concerns took spatial, material and living form. Plants, water, stone, paving, topography and architecture became elements of composition within landscapes experienced through movement and transformed over time. His gardens therefore formed a distinct part of a much broader artistic practice, rather than serving as the medium through which his other artistic activities should be understood.
The Plantsman and Environmentalist
Burle Marx’s engagement with plants began early and deepened during his time in Germany in the late 1920s, when he encountered Brazilian tropical flora at the Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Garden. Throughout his life, he undertook botanical expeditions across Brazil, collecting plants in their native habitats and collaborating closely with botanists and other specialists. Many of the plants he brought into cultivation proved to be species new to science, and more than fifty plants have been named in his honour.
His use of native species challenged the prevailing reliance on imported ornamental plants, making Brazil’s flora central to his landscape practice. At the Sítio Roberto Burle Marx, he assembled and cultivated an extensive living collection of tropical and subtropical plants, creating a place for observation, preservation and landscape experimentation.
His botanical work was inseparable from his concern about the destruction of Brazil’s natural environments. Through expeditions, lectures, writings and public interventions, he drew attention to the loss of native vegetation and argued for its conservation. Long before environmental protection became a widespread public concern, Burle Marx had made the preservation of Brazil’s flora and landscapes a sustained focus of his work and public advocacy.
Global recognition
Burle Marx’s international standing was recognised with numerous honours during his lifetime, including the Fine Arts Medal of the American Institute of Architects (1965), an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art, London (1982), and the ASLA Medal (1985), the highest honour of the American Society of Landscape Architects.
His international work included the courtyards and Piazza at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris, created as part of the 1960s extension by Bernard Zehrfuss and Jean Prouvé to the modernist complex originally designed by Marcel Breuer, Pier Luigi Nervi and Zehrfuss.
His work also forms part of several sites now inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The Pampulha Modern Ensemble in Belo Horizonte, inscribed in 2016, recognises the integration of architecture, landscape design and the arts achieved through the collaboration of Oscar Niemeyer, Burle Marx, Cândido Portinari and others. The Sítio Roberto Burle Marx, his home and the setting for his gardens, botanical collections and extensive collections of art and objects, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2021.
In Rio de Janeiro, Flamengo Park and the Copacabana Promenade are part of the UNESCO World Heritage site Rio de Janeiro: Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea, inscribed in 2012. The UNESCO Statement of Outstanding Universal Value recognises Burle Marx’s landscape designs along Guanabara Bay, including Flamengo Park and the redesign of Copacabana Beach.
At the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus do Congonhas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985, Burle Marx designed the landscape around the Passos chapels.
A Lasting Legacy
Burle Marx’s work cannot be understood through landscape alone. Across disciplines, he developed distinct forms of expression while maintaining a sustained engagement with art, nature and Brazilian culture.
His transformation of modern landscape design was inseparable from his recognition of the aesthetic and ecological value of Brazil’s native flora and his commitment to its conservation. At the same time, his work as an artist, designer and collector formed part of a creative practice that extended beyond conventional professional boundaries.
His public landscapes remain integral to the life of the cities for which they were created. At the Sítio Roberto Burle Marx, his home, gardens, living plant collection and extensive collections of art and objects remain together as a material record of the different dimensions of his life and work.
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Black and White Portrait of Burle Marx, date unknown | © Copyright information not available. All rights to this work are assumed to be held by the creator or copyright holder. If you are the copyright owner and wish to claim ownership or request removal, please contact us.
Aechmea burle-marxii (Orange flower) | © Copyright information not available. All rights to this work are assumed to be held by the creator or copyright holder. If you are the copyright owner and wish to claim ownership or request removal, please contact us.
Heliconia burle-marxii, botanical illustration by Margaret Mee 1970 (red flower) | Image © SRBM/IPHAN/MINC / Margaret Mee
Roberto Burle Marx with Le Corbusier during a luncheon in the architect’s honour at the home of Burle Marx, 1962 | Photo © Burle Marx Landscape Design Studio, Rio de Janeiro
Portrait of Burle Marx holding leaves | Photo © Landscape Film: Roberto Burle Marx (2018) João Vargas Penna
Roberto Burle Marx - Garden of Casa Forte (City Hall), Recife, 1935 | Image provided by Sítio Roberto Burle Marx, Rio de Janeiro © The Jewish Museum, New YorkRoberto Burle Marx, Dr Roberio Dias and Buckmister Fuller at the Santo Antônio da Bica Farm (now Sítio Roberto Burle Marx), March 8, 1980 |
Photo: by Walter Burle Marx © Dr Roberio Dias Collection.
Vellozia Burle-Marxii botanical illustration by Margaret Mee (purple flower) | Image © SRBM/IPHAN/MINC / Margaret Mee
Roberto Burle painting tablecloth and tiles at Sitio/ San Antonio de Bica | Photo © Meyer/Tyba
Calathea burle-marxii, Ice Blue (blue flower) | Photo © Carl E Lewis/ Flikr
Forma Livre carved chrysoprase in a gold bracelet by Roberto Burle Marx and Haroldo Burle Marx | Photo © Marion Fasel
Philodendron burle-marxii, botanical illustration by Margaret Mee | Image © SRBM/IPHAN/MINC / Margaret Mee
Tapeçaria by Burle Marx, 1980 | Photo © Ding Musa
Roberto Burle Marx and Margaret Mee in his home in Rio de Janeiro, 1988 | Photo © South American Pictures, Tony Morrison
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