Sítio Roberto Burle Marx

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World Heritage Committee Description:

Situated in the western region of Rio de Janeiro, the property embodies a successful project developed over more than 40 years by landscape architect and artist Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994), a “landscape laboratory” to create “living works of art” using native plants and drawing on Modernist ideas. Began in 1949, the property encompasses extensive landscapes, gardens, buildings and collections, which feature the key characteristics that came to define Burle Marx’s landscape gardens and influenced the development of modern gardens internationally. The site is characterized by sinuous forms, exuberant mass planting, architectural plant arrangements, dramatic colour contrasts, use of tropical plants, and the incorporation of elements of traditional folk culture. By the end of the 1960s, the site housed the most representative collection of Brazilian plants, alongside other rare tropical species. In the site, 3,500 cultivated species of tropical and subtropical flora grow in harmony with the native vegetation of the region, notably the Atlantic Forest biome and associated ecosystems, mangrove swamp and restinga (coastal tropical sandy plain). Sítio Roberto Burle Marx exhibits an ecological conception of form as a process, including social collaboration which is the basis for environmental and cultural preservation. It comprises the first modern tropical garden to be inscribed on the World Heritage List.