Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Pits alongside the center and
an adjacent museum house
many of South America's
more exotic snakes and
arachnids. Smaller but even
deadlier creatures can be seen
through microscopes in the
institute's Museu de
Microbiologia . This bright,
modern space also includes
excellent interactive displays
which are particularly popular
with children.
with the architect Lucio
Costa who had worked with
Le Corbusier. Burle Marx
was one of the first archi-
tects to combine sculptural
and painting techniques
with landscape design.
His gardens in the Parque
Burle Marx have been com-
pared to abstract paintings,
utilizing simple shapes,
some curvilinear and recti-
linear patterns to create
blocks of color and texture,
broken by paths and areas
of woodland. Marx was a
keen ecologist and promoted
the use of Brazilian native
species, the park is sur-
rounded by a small area of
forest, comprising various
Mata Atlântica species.
Although Marx contributed
to Parque Ibirapuera
(see pp146-7) , the park is
the only exclusive example
of his work in his home
city. The gardens were orig-
inally private, commissioned
for the millionaire indus-
trialist “Baby” Pignatari in
the 1940s.
As well as landscaping,
Burle Marx was allowed
to experiment and place
abstract structures in the
gardens. These include
mirrors of water and rect-
angular blocks reminiscent
of the low Mixtec buildings
in Mitla, Mexico. The
constructions near the
avenue of palms at the
park's entrance are by
Oscar Niemeyer.
Jardim Botânico s
Av Miguel Stéfano 3031. Tel (011)
5073 6300. @ # 9am-5pm Wed-
Sun. & 7
Pond with a tropical forest glade
at the Jardim Botânico
Other than the Serra da
Cantareira mountains on
the city's western fringe, the
Jardim Botânico is the largest
area of green in São Paulo's
metropolitan area. It com-
bines formal gardens, laid out
around a series of lakes with
areas of forest large enough
to support several resident
troops of red howler mon-
keys. Their guttural calls can
be heard here at dawn and
dusk and sometimes the
monkeys themselves can be
seen in the trees. There is
plenty of other wildlife too,
including agoutis, pacas and
tufted-eared marmosets. The
latter often loiter about in the
trees around the lawns of the
sculpture garden hoping to
grab a fruity morsel.
The entrance to the park
is through an avenue of
magnificent royal palms,
surrounded by tropical and
subtropical trees. Most are
labeled with their common
and scientific names (the
former in Portuguese only).
The avenue leads to the
Jardim Lineu , inspired by the
gardens in Uppsala, Sweden,
and, like them, are laid out in
homage to 18th-century bio-
logist Carl Linnaeus. Glass
houses here contain a number
of Atlantic rainforest plants
and a botanical museum
preserves a bank of Brazilian
seeds from flowering plants
and important fruit species.
Beyond the Jardim Lineu
are areas of ponds and lawns
popular with picnickers on
the weekends. These are
fringed with tropical forest
cut by short trails and little
running streams. Walkers
should be wary of snakes.
Parque Burle
Marx d
Av Dona Helena Pereira de Morais
200. Tel (011) 3746 7631. @
# 9am-7pm daily. &
Roberto Burle Marx (1909-94)
was South America's greatest
landscape architect and one
of the three core designers
of Brasília (see pp294-5) . His
designs were strongly influ-
enced by Modernist ideas
inspired by his studies in
Germany, and his early work
Abstract rectangular structures, Parque Burle Marx
 
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