Roberto Burle Marx

Edmundo Cavanellas Residence, Petropolis, Brazil, with landscape design by Roberto Burle Marx, 1954

My first reaction to Burle Marx’s design here is that it perfectly integrates the house with Landscape, making it feel a part of the valley. Curving and swaying planting guides my eyes towards the building where it makes me feel as though the house is rising out of the ground. The simplicity of the curvaceous blocks of a single type of plant, with one colour and texture, contrasting with the complex rainforest behind helps to achieve this. Rather than hundreds of different species and colours of trees behind fighting for my attention I am focused on the stark red running throughout the composition. The uncluttered design gives a feeling of tranquillity nestles with it  a noisy forest making me feel as if I was there, I would feel I would be able to refuge in the calm of the house and garden after travelling through the forest.

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Filler, M. (2016) The Builder of Jungles, The New York Review of Books, 2 June. Available at: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2016/06/02/roberto-burle-marx-builder-jungles/ (Accessed: 11 February 2026).

 

Collage

I realised I never posted my collage we made in a lecture but better late than never! It has been a long time since I've done a collage and it was a process I really enjoyed so I will definitely try again soon. I chose the colour green as my theme and stuck a wide range of photos out of magazines together to creat a wild garden with lots of fun elements such as as tree house with a slide into a pool and a man with a huge onion.