Despite it being in the shadow of a nuclear power station and subjected to a hostile climate all year-round, Jarman was besotted. Stopping off at Dungeness in Kent, together with his partner Keith Collins and the actress Tilda Swinton, he came across Prospect Cottage, a small fisherman's hut that happened to be up for sale. In 1986, the artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman was touring Southern England filming footage for an experimental film that would be titled The Garden. So important was his work that Sítio Roberto Burle Marx is now preserved as a Unesco World Heritage site. During his lifetime, he and his team collected and cultivated more than 3,500 plants, many of which he discovered himself.

'He was really interested in primary research about the plants, and understanding what environment they would need to thrive, which plant went with which and how to propagate them and how to turn them into these amazing garden artworks,' says Viviane Stappmanns, co-author of the book that accompanies the exhibition.Īt Sítio Santo, he was able to explore the colour combinations, shapes, textures, contrasts and perspectives that could be created with native plants before integrating them into his designs. In 1949, he and his brother bought Sítio Santo Antônio da Bica, a farm on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, which would become a testing ground for his botanical and artistic research. He made it his mission to correct this anomaly, becoming an ardent defender of biodiversity in the process. Frequently referring to the experience as an 'awakening', he realised that the European-influenced gardens back home were virtually devoid of native species. He is responsible for modernising Brazilian garden design but also made a major contribution to the protection of the rainforest with his research into native flora.ĭespite being born and raised in Brazil, Burle Marx's first encounter with plants from the Amazon rainforest was at the Botanical Gardens in Dahlem, during a year and a half he spent in Berlin in the late 1920s. Roberto Burle Marx was one of the great landscape artists of the 20th Century. S í tio Roberto Burle Marx, Rio de Janeiro

A half built garden