BERN.- In transferring creative principles from art and music to nature, the Brazilian artist Roberto Burle Marx (1909–1994) revolutionised landscape architecture in the first half of the 20th century. From 17 October 2026 to 7 February 2027, the Zentrum Paul Klee is devoting the first major exhibition in Switzerland to the ‘inventor of the tropical garden’, who was also a painter, graphic artist, designer, collector and environmentalist. It invites the viewer to discover the whole interdisciplinary artistic universe of Roberto Burle Marx, with a particular focus on his projects in landscape architecture.

Roberto Burle Marx was a multi-faceted creator: he painted, drew, sketched, passionately loved singing, was a collector and an environmental activist, who cultivated countless plants from the various ecological regions of Brazil. His most important legacy lies in his projects in landscape architecture: he revolutionised the field by transferring creative principles from painting and music to nature, and by becoming involved in the cultural valorisation of what was considered ‘Brazilian’. He planted his gardens and parks with native plant species, even though these were considered inferior to imported European plants, and he was strongly committed to the exploration and protection of Brazilian flora. He saw his projects in a wider urbanistic context. Even today, Roberto Burle Marx remains a figure of reference for landscape architects all around the world.

The exhibition in the Zentrum Paul Klee is the first to invite the viewer to get to know the interdisciplinary artist, who is seen as an icon in his Brazilian homeland, and is one of the most important representatives of global modern art. The exhibition focuses on fifteen selected projects in landscape architecture, shown in the form of hand-painted plans, ink drawings, multiple photographs and films. These include designs for public parks and private gardens as well as the world-renowned Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro. Alongside these, the exhibition features designs and a selection of jewellery, tapestries, costumes and stage sets, as well as paintings and objects from the S�tio Roberto Burle Marx, Burle Marx’ residence, which also served as his studio and experimental field and is home to his unique collection of tropical plants. A fifteen-metre wide video installation allows visitors to immerse themselves in the lush plant world of the S�tio, which today is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Furthermore, the BBC film Lost Paradise: The Gardens of Roberto Burle Marx is shown.

Architecture – painting – landscape architecture

Burle Marx began his career at School od Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro. He initially studied architecture before switching to painting. Although he abandoned his painting studies after two years, painting remained a fundamental pillar of his work throughout his life. His interdisciplinary work was reciprocally pervaded by nature and art: In his garden projects, he often worked with mass plantings, in which clearly defined, organically curved or orthogonal areas were densely planted with a single plant species. As in painting, this created juxtaposed fields that contrast in form, colour or texture. It is therefore hardly surprising that his plans, painted in gouache, evoke abstract paintings. He also integrated sculptures or colourfully designed wall reliefs, waterfalls stone elements and floor mosaics into his landscape projects. One example is the three-coloured cobbles at Copacabana.

‘I am an artist first and foremost. My canvas is the earth, my medium is plants.’ --Roberto Burle Marx

Burle Marx used his draughtsman’s skills to visualise his projects. His spontaneous ink drawings look like intricate teeming pictures populated by plants and small human figures, and provide a first impression of the projects in question. In other drawings he paid attention to a scientifically correct reproduction of the various ecological regions of Brazil, each with its own typical topography and native plants. He was always committed to sharing knowledge of the native flora and fostering an appreciation of the country’s natural environment.

Burle Marx fostered contacts and close collaboration with the leading Brazilian architects of his day, including Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer, and this soon won him recognition. As a result, he was responsible for the landscape-architectural design of many iconic buildings of Brazilian modernism. From 1938, he designed the three gardens of the Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro, which was planned by a team of Brazilian architects in collaboration with Le Corbusier, and became the first modernist public building in Latin America. Overall, Roberto Burle Marx and his team left over two thousand projects for garden and park designs all over the world. These also include the design for the tropical garden of the Casa Schulthess in Havana, designed by Richard Neutra, now the residence of the Swiss Embassy in Cuba.

The inventor of the tropical garden

Many of Burle Marx’s innovative approaches – the asymmetrical and curved forms, the clear design with lush mass plantings, the harmonious connection of architecture, garden and surrounding landscape, his profound knowledge of plants, the use of tropical species and the inclusion of elements of modern art and Brazilian culture have had a lasting effect on landscape architecture even into the present day, and can be encountered all over the world.

‘Gardens are works of art and must be seen as such. As in painting, sculpture and architecture, one must take colour, texture, volumes and form into account.’

Roberto Burle Marx

Burle Marx’s designs for public parks and urban spaces often show how landscape architecture can enrich urban life and encourage a sense of community. Burle Marx was less interested in the design of private gardens than in creating points of contact with nature for the rapidly growing urban population. As early as the mid-20th century, he was taking into account both urban and social considerations that are commonplace today.

Avant-gardist and environmentalist

In 1949, Burle Marx purchased a former farm, where he experimented with design elements and built a living collection of plants. For his increasingly large and numerous projects he needed native plant material, which was not sufficiently available in trade. He organised expeditions into various regions of Brazil to collect plants. Some of them were still not yet scientifically documented: Burle Marx and his team discovered over a hundred new species. Around thirty of these were named after him and bear the epithet ‘burle-marxii’. The collection of the present-day S�tio Roberto Burle Marx includes over 3500 species from Brazil and other regions of the world, some of which have disappeared in nature as a result of deforestation, industrialisation and extensive agriculture. As early as the 1960s, as a member of the Brazilian Federal Council of Culture, Burle Marx opposed deforestation and the destruction of species diversity. This made him one of the first activists and environmentalists in Brazil to be committed to biodiversity – an aspect of his work that makes his artistic approach especially relevant and fascinating today.