Roberto Burle Marx (August 4, 1909 – June 4, 1994) was a Brazilian landscape architect (as well as a painter, print maker, ecologist, naturalist, artist and musician) whose designs of parks and gardens made him world-famous.

[2] Burle Marx's first landscaping inspirations came while studying painting in Germany, where he often visited the Botanical Garden in Berlin and first learned about Brazil's native flora.

While in school he associated with several of Brazil's future leaders in architecture and botanists who continued to be of significant influence in his personal and professional life.

In 1932, Burle Marx designed his first landscape for a private residence by the architects Lucio Costa and Gregori Warchavchik.

This project, the Schwartz house was the beginning of a collaboration with Costa which was enriched later by Oscar Niemeyer who designed the Brazilian Pavilion at the New York World's Fair in 1939.

[3] In 1937, Burle Marx gained international recognition and admiration for this abstract design of a roof garden for the Ministry of Education building.

[6] In 2021, Sítio Roberto Burle Marx was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List because of its unique Modernist design and its importance for environmental and cultural preservation.

He opened an office in Caracas, Venezuela in 1956 and started working with architects Jose Tabacow and Haruyoshi Ono in 1968.

[5] Marx was also involved in efforts to protect and conserve the rain forest from the destructive commercial activities of deforestation for bananas and other crops and clear cutting of timber.

His aesthetics were often nature based, for example, never mixing flower colours, utilisation of big groups of the same specimen, using native plants and making a rocky field into a relaxing garden.

"[12] This approach is exemplified by the Copacabana Beach promenade, where native sea breeze resistant trees and palms appear in groupings along Avenida Atlantica.

The water feature, in this case, is of course the ocean and beach, which is bordered by a 30-foot wide continuous scallop patterned mosaic walk.

"[14] Roberto Burle Marx has received the following prizes, diplomas of merit and honorary memberships: The landscape architecture prize at the 2nd International Exhibition of Architecture (1953), title of Knight of the Order of the Crown from Belgium (1959), Diploma d’Honneur in Paris (1959), the Santos Dumont Medal of the Brazilian Government (1963), the Fine Arts Medal of The American Institute of Architects in Washington (1965), doctor of the Royal College of Art, London (1982) and an honorary doctorate from the Queen of the Netherlands.