Roberto Burle Marx

At some point in the 80’s in Foyles bookshop I came across a publication on Brazilian artist / landscape architect / ecologist and naturalist Roberto Burle Marx. Amongst many other things he was one of the first people to call for the conservation of Brazil's rainforests. Clearly you can see the influence of European Modernism in his work as well as Cubism. But as with Mexican Juan O’Gorman the style is totally Latin American borrowing as it does from Brazilian folk art.

More importantly for me are his aesthetics, nature based, considering design elements such as the interaction of insects with plants. The blurring of the distinction between architecture and outside space and the epic scale of his projects. Manchesters Crescents in Hulme could have benefited from Marx’s Copacabana Beach landscape treatment.