The interest in botany was always present in the actions of Roberto Burle Marx. His studies in arts refined his perception of the aesthetic potential of plant species, often found in forests and little used in formal gardens. He used different species of shrubs, trees and palm trees to create plastic compositions, seeing the diversity of Brazilian plants as a material for creation, based on their shape, colour, texture and volume. This approach was inaugurated in his youth, when he visited a greenhouse at the Dahlem Botanical Garden, in Berlin (Germany), which displayed tropical plants, many originating from Brazil. Throughout his life, he searched for plant species not yet catalogued by science or that were unfamiliar to him, seeking to expand his landscape vocabulary. He was one of the first landscapers to use native plants in his projects, at a time when the most common thing in Brazil was to use species imported from Europe.
Burle Marx made numerous trips to visit the national biomes and was active in defending their preservation. He believed that it was necessary to know in order to value and preserve. In this movement, he exchanged plant species between regions of the country, as can be seen in his first projects, such as Casa Forte Square, in Recife (PE). Throughout his career, he worked in collaboration with botanists such as Leandro Aristeguieta, Henrique Mello Barreto, Graziela Barroso and Luiz Emygdio de Mello Filho. The landscaper’s gardens demonstrate the importance of respecting the cyclical system that characterises life, even in large urban centres.
