Roberto Burle Marx (August 4, 1909- June 4, 1994)was a Brazilian landscape architect (as well as a painter, print maker, ecologist, naturalist, artist and musician) whose designs of parks and gardens made him world famous. He is accredited with having introduced modernist landscape architecture to Brazil. He was known as a modern nature artist and a public urban space designer. Roberto Burle Marx’s work is interesting for its high quality, for its exemplary use of the Abstract Style and for its use of native Brazilian plants. Marx was the child of Brazilian mother (Burle) and a German-Jewish father (Marx). His mother was interested in gardening and his father in design. Roberto Burle Marx went to study painting in Berlin at the age of 19. His studies continued in Rio de Janiro, at the School of Fine Arts. Roberto Burle Marx was fortunate to work with the architect Lucio Costa. His garden designs were like abstract paintings, some curvilinear and some rectilinear, using native Brazilian plants to create blocks of colour. A surprising feature of his curvilinear designs was his relative insensitivity to the curves of underlying topography. Roberto Burle Marx’s best work was on flat surfaces, including roof gardens and the 5 km promenade at Copacabana beach.
