TROPOLISM

The New York Times went to Rio and had a blast! And, there is architecture down there. And not just in Rio. I know, this is kind of like when MoMA discovered that the Spanish were doing something between 1971-1992. But in this case the articles are about great design.

First is a landmark show about Roberto Burle Marx at the Paço Imperial Museum, the powerfully influential painter who happened to do most of his work in landscape architecture. Usually taking second credit to Oscar Niemeyer, Marx is given his due in this show as a brilliant artist who gave modernist landscape design a distinctively Brazilian identity. His work is explored both formally (where his inventiveness is as tireless and arcane as Gio Ponti's) and as it relates to the native plant species and environs of South America.

Second is a house not far from Rio that some rich vacationers renovated. They liked Brazil so much they decided to renovate it into their very own tropical mansion. It's like John Lautner was asked to build with a Kon-Tiki kit of parts. Which is to say it's so over the top almost-modern that we love it.