Depositions

Roberto Burle Marx and Public Landscapes Under Dictatorship

Catherine Seavitt Nordenson (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

336 Seiten

2023
University of Texas Press (Verlag)
978-1-4773-2760-9 (ISBN)

Artikel merken

Presenting the first English translation of Burle Marx’s “depositions,” this volume highlights the environmental advocacy of a preeminent Brazilian landscape architect who advised and challenged the country’s military dictatorship. Depositions offers new insight into Burle Marx’s outstanding landscape oeuvre and elucidates his transition from prolific designer to prescient counselor.

Recipient of 2019 John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize, Foundation for Landscape Studies
2021 On the Brinck Book Award Winner

“Burle Marx created a new and modern grammar for international landscape design.”
-Lauro Cavalcanti, quoted in the New York Times

“The real creator of the modern garden.”
-American Institute of Architects

Presenting the first English translation of Burle Marx’s “depositions,” this volume highlights the environmental advocacy of a preeminent Brazilian landscape architect who advised and challenged the country’s military dictatorship.

Roberto Burle Marx (1909–1994) is internationally known as one of the preeminent modernist landscape architects. He designed renowned public landscapes in Brazil, beginning with small plazas in Recife in the 1930s and culminating with large public parks in the early 1960s, most significantly the Parque do Flamengo in Rio de Janeiro. Depositions explores a pivotal moment in Burle Marx’s career-the years in which he served as a member of the Federal Cultural Council created by the military dictatorship in the mid-1960s. Despite the inherent conflict and risk in working with the military regime, Burle Marx boldly used his position to advocate for the protection of the unique Brazilian landscape, becoming a prophetic voice of caution against the regime’s policies of rapid development and resource exploitation.

Depositions presents the first English translation of eighteen environmental position pieces that Burle Marx wrote for the journal Cultura , a publication of the Brazilian Ministry of Education and Culture, from 1967 through 1973. Catherine Seavitt Nordenson introduces and contextualizes the depositions by analyzing their historical and political contexts, as well as by presenting pertinent examples of Burle Marx’s earlier public projects, which enables a comprehensive reading of the texts. Addressing deforestation, the establishment of national parks, the place of commemorative sculpture, and the unique history of the Brazilian cultural landscape, Depositions offers new insight into Burle Marx’s outstanding landscape oeuvre and elucidates his transition from prolific designer to prescient counselor.

Catherine Seavitt Nordenson is a professor and director of the Master of Landscape Architecture program at the City College of New York. is an associate professor at the City College of New York. She coauthored On the Water: Palisade Bay and coedited Waterproofing New York.

Introduction: Roberto Burle Marx and the Ecological Modern
Chapter 1. Constructing Culture in Brazil: Politics and the Public Landscape
Chapter 2. Forest Narratives

Brazilian Landscapes, April 27, 1967
Suggestions for the Preservation of National Parks, August 1967
Forest Politics and the Destruction of Forests, March 25, 1969
Forest Conservation, February 12, 1971

Chapter 3. Landscapes of the Baroque Interior

Parks, Gardens, and Public Plazas, May 23, 1968
Cultural Contribution, November 28, 1968
Defense of Nature Reserves, June 27, 1969
Defense of the Landscape, August 25, 1969

Chapter 4. Large Parks, Statues, and Disfigurement

Statues in Gardens, August 29, 1968
Sacrificed Landscape, January 28, 1969
Preservation of Landscape Conditions, September 17, 1970
Landscape Complex, July 7, 1973
Green Spaces, July 11, 1973

Chapter 5. The Scientific Park

Current Conditions at the Botanical Garden, February 7, 1968
The Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro, September 27, 1968
The Botanical Garden and Woodland Nursery, August 26, 1969
The Botanical Garden of Belo Horizonte, May 6, 1970

Chapter 6. Military Gardens

Garden and Ecology, July–September 1969

Epilogue: The Counselor
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	05.04.2023
Zusatzinfo	160 b&w photos, 27 b&w illus.
Verlagsort	Austin, TX
Sprache	englisch
Maße	178 x 254 mm
Gewicht	680 g
Themenwelt	Technik ► Architektur
ISBN-10	1-4773-2760-6 / 1477327606
ISBN-13	978-1-4773-2760-9 / 9781477327609
Zustand	Neuware