Of the Brazilian landscaper Roberto Burle Marx, the general public knows, at best, two or three things. We owe him the sensual and swaying stone pavement, undulating along Copacabana beach, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. That he contributed to the construction of Brasilia, the country’s capital which emerged in 1960, together with the town planner Lúcio Costa and the architect Oscar Niemeyer. Or that he continued to warn against deforestation in the Amazon until his death in 1994, at the age of 84.
No one knows, however, the exact number of activities he carried out – he was in turn a botanist, painter, ceramist, upholsterer, jeweler, cook, opera singer, theater decorator… We still don’t know how many of gardens he designed. The specialists’ estimates oscillate as sinuously as the spaces he designed: around a thousand, some say; almost triple, correct the others.
There is little certainty: Paris is home to the only gardens that Roberto Burle Marx created on European soil. These are six patios, nestled inside the headquarters of UNESCO, the United Nations organization for education, science and culture, not far from the Hôtel des Invalides. They were inaugurated in 1963, two years before the American Institute of Architects hailed the Brazilian as “the true creator of the modern garden”.
Between neglect and recognition
Alternating curves and right angles, forming vast flat areas of plants, stones and water, these patios are characteristic of the lush and elemental art of Roberto Burle Marx. They fit harmoniously into the building designed by around ten international architects, including two of his masters and friends, the Brazilian Lúcio Costa and the Franco-Swiss Le Corbusier. Very degraded, but soon to be repaired, they bear witness to the paradoxical posterity of the landscaper: here abandoned, there celebrated with care, his work continues to meander between neglect and recognition, in his country as well as outside.
So, therefore, of the six Parisian patios. Fissures streak the basins; the water supplies have been drying up for a long time; the vegetation dies away little by little. UNESCO has taken up the problem, a spokesperson assures us. Experts are diagnosing the extent of the damage, prior to proper restoration, in the coming months. The institution is well placed to measure its full value. In 2021, she listed the “Sítio” as a World Heritage Site, where Roberto Burle Marx lived and worked, from 1949 until his death. An immense estate, between the artist’s studio and the nursery, which extends over 40 hectares, on the western borders of Rio de Janeiro.
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