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Parque do Flamengo

1960–1963, Rio de Janeiro
Also: Attero do Flamengo
Landscape architecture: Roberto Burle Marx
Associates: Maurício Monte, Júlio César Pessolani Zavala, Fernando Tábora, John Stoddart
Coordination: Maria Carlota de Macedo Soares
Architecture: Affonso Eduardo Reidy

The Parque do Flamengo is a 120-hectare beachfront park established on reclaimed land on the shore of the Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro. The park development was intended, on the one hand, to improve infrastructure, particularly regarding traffic, and, on the other hand, to serve as a local recreational area for Rio de Janeiro’s residents.

The design by Burle Marx and his team included a harbour, sport grounds, leisure and picnic areas, playgrounds and a restaurant. A restaurant with an aquarium, planned at the end of the 1960s, was never realised. The grounds that Burle Marx had already designed in 1956 for the Museu de Arte Moderna were integrated into the park’s design. Two motorways divide the park into three sections. Parking, sports areas and playgrounds are located on the city side. The middle section between the two motorways is a landscaped garden designed to be appreciated from a moving vehicle. The strip along the coast includes leisure areas and the beachfront. A connection between the coast and the city is provided by bridges and underpasses for foot and bike traffic. Burle Marx treasured the opportunity that designing the park gave him to improve the quality of life of Rio de Janeiro’s inhabitants. Issues of social and urban planning were very important to him.

The salty soil of the reclaimed land, and likewise the sea air, meant that designing a planting scheme for the location was a significant challenge. Burle Marx experimented with both local and foreign plants. The planting of the park utilised over 240 different species and a total of around 17,000 individual plants and was a task that took over 15 years.