Sitio Burle Marx
Just outside of Rio exists a place that can teach us a lot. It’s called Sitio, or “site”, and was imagined by Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) as a space for experimentation. In the 1950’s, when the rest of the world sought to forego indigenous design for the dominant European style, Burle Marx instead felt a call to honor his native Brazil. To this call, he responded with Sitio. The former banana plantation came to serve as home for Burle Marx and as an incubator for his dreams in painting, sculpture, landscape architecture and environmental activism. In these myriad ways it continues to inspire, but in the latter, Sitio has left us with a blueprint for designing in a world that is grasping for air.
Emerging as a painter and landscape architect in the early 1930’s, Burle Marx relied heavily on organic shapes. He borrowed this lovingly from the jungles of his home country. Ironically, his obsession with Amazonian fauna began as a child in Germany, before he and his family moved back to Brazil. It was in Berlin at the Botanical Gardens where he was first introduced to species of plants found only in Brazil, and it was these plants that became catalysts for all of his life’s work. For Burle Marx – the artist at heart, medium appeared irrelevant. Paths of stones and grass wind around a garden of his design much like his sculptures snake in a city center, or his paints meander their way onto canvas board. This fluidity between his crafts speaks to his legacy, to the understanding that all on this Earth is connected. The ties between us and our work and our natural ‘sites’ are indelible no matter where we find ourselves.
We know Burle Marx for his famous designs of parks and for his hallmark role in the Brazilian modernist movement, but today we’re appreciating him for his enduring love of the natural environment. These photos shown here were taken during our trip to Sitio, from which we find endless inspiration (our Sitio tile was born soon after). The images, taken during a visit a decade ago, are organized in three sections: the garden, home and studio.
