INSTITUTO MOREIRA SALLES – IMS RIO GARDENS
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
by Isabel Duprat
I had met Ambassador Walther Moreira Salles twelve years before the work I did at IMS Rio, when I made the garden of his residence in São Paulo. After this, the gardens of the country house in Araras, in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro,developed over many years, where I enjoyed pleasant moments with the ambassador and his wife, Lucia. The couple had a great taste for gardens, so during the walks in the park, in the delicious summer weather in the mountains, I was introduced to many gardens around the world, such as the green and white gardens of Sissinghurst, which I had never heard of, one of the ambassador's favorites, and I had the opportunity and privilege to live an unforgettable day in the gardens of Giverny, practically alone, on a Monday, a day closed to the public, in the middle of spring. From lunches where we shared a taste for good wine, pork and guava from Minas Gerais, to conversations by the fireplace in the cozy chalet, which I decorated with pink hydrangeas in January, I keep fond memories of what I enjoyed with fascination, respect and admiration, so full of knowledge for life.
When, in 1995, I was asked to renovate the gardens of the Gávea house, IMS Rio was still in its beginning, in its inception. The house, former residence of Walther Moreira Salles located in the Gávea bourough is a notable example of the Modern Architecture of Rio de Janeiro, designed by Olavo Redig de Campos, and was adapted and restored by architects Maria Luíza Dutra and Walter Menezes.
The 7.800 m² plot of land cut by the Rainha River concentrated a large number of important specimens of trees and palm trees of different species, testimony to our tropical flora, and some exotic and giant jackfruit trees (Artocarpus heterophyllus). This significant green area contained an educational potential, insofar as, in addition to the expressive set of plant species it contained, it offered several possibilities for intervention and reclamation by nature. I was given complete freedom to direct the work and decide what to do. On this occasion, I understood that the first step was to carry out a thorough cleaning that would allow a good diagnosis, given the years that the house was closed and the gardens without maintenance, in order to guide my work. From the garden designed by Burle Marx in 1951, only isolated portions of species of the original project remained.
I took the idea of restoration as a guideline, considering that there were still physical conditions for recovery. Often the limiting factor in the restoration of a garden occurs when the physical and environmental conditions have changed a lot over the years. Here, on the other hand, the large trees that already existed when the original project was carried out still remained, so the shaded areas remained the same. The water mirror and its beautiful tile panel and the pool were also there, in areas of good sunshine, as initially, and there was a copy of Burle Marx's original project with much of the list of plants.
In addition to the restored areas, I designed and executed the new ones to be incorporated into the Institute's garden that had not been the object of the original project, not to mention areas generated by the adaptation of the residence. Both sets, the restoration of the Burle Marx project and the landscaping project I did for the new areas, were approximately of the same size - 2,000 m², totaling 4000 m².
I was driven by the desire to recover a Burle Marx project from the first twenty years of his professional career. In this work, the integration with architecture and the harmony with the surroundings, and the use of native vegetation as a repertoire of species, already translate structural elements of his design attitude. Here Burle Marx shows us, on the one hand, the boldness of the panel of tiles near the water mirror, which in itself is already a work of art, the use of sculptural plants in the fountain courtyard, the irony of the classic design with the geometric garden parterre and, on the other hand, presents us with a shy drawing, almost naive in the front garden, where he continues to develop his pictorial garden using vegetation as a palette of colors and textures, thus proposing a renewal of the figurative vocabulary as it refers to the treatment of green spaces. This was a completely different attitude from the one I had in relation to the gardens of Casa Roberto Marinho. There, I elected not to restore the original garden because it had been completely altered over time, due to the enormous intervention diverting the Carioca river coupled with the lack of the original project documentation.
The project started in 1997 after almost two years of work, carrying out in all the areas mapping of the existing vegetation, diagnosis, feasibility study of the restoration, repair of the eroded areas, cleaning, restoration of the bamboo near the river bank, phytosanitary treatment of trees and palms, removal of plants for formation and stock of seedlings for replanting in other areas of the land, preparation of the soil to receive planting and fertilization of all existing vegetation that would not be removed.
For the areas to be restored, the original plan was digitalized and all the plant beds were dimensioned and leveled in order to make the garden possible. For all other areas, I made a project promoting the integration of all the garden patches of the Institute in order to provide even today the feeling that the set is harmonious.
The purpose of this work was not to perform an orthodox restoration, but to rescue the idea of an initial work in the career of Roberto Burle Marx, to follow in his path and pay my homage to him.
Restoration area 1870 m²
Intervention of new areas 2130 m²
Project and execution 1995 - 1999
Fragmento do relatório realizado na época
do projeto com o diagnóstico e proposições
