09/03/2020
I met Giulio Gino Rizzo (GGR) at the beginning of the time
(1995-2011) when I directed the Sítio Roberto Burle Marx (SRBM). He was taken
there by Haru (Haruyoshi Ono) and maybe because he had organized a catalogue
for an exhibition of Burle Marx in Italy, he said he wanted several rare plants.
I found some soi-disant friends of Roberto Burle
Marx (RBM) who, in view of this alleged condition, intended privileges on the Sítio.
GGR was just another one.
But I could not provide the plants he demanded, because
I was just a director, not the owner of the plants.
More than once I also found criticism of my work at the Sítio
long time after they were written. Perhaps there is some worthy reason why my
detractors do not send their objections simultaneously to me, but I do not know
any.
In the case of GGR, I only became aware of the size of his
animosity now in 2020, by chance.
Surfing the internet, I discovered that he
took the trouble to write a book, published in 2010 – Il giardino privato di Burle Marx: il Sítio – in which he extensively criticizes me as director.
GGR even says that his motivation for writing the book is related to my
performance.
I will try to clarify why he is wrong in these critics,
in the evaluation of Roberto's work, in the very conception of what Landscape Design
is and in what he understands by ethics.
As I prepared myself for this unpleasant task, I
remembered an expression our master Roberto used to say: embarrassment de
richesse. Thus he characterized a state of mind that sometimes invaded him
during the choice of plants of our flora for a project. In the present case,
the embarrassment is due to the profusion of errors of every kind that GGR
makes. Virtually all the phrases of his criticisms would deserve clarification.
I know that, after so long, talking about
it may arouse an attention that the GGR’s book does not deserve, but I think
some clarification must be given, after all this is an opportunity to resolve what may not be
only GGR’s suspicions.
So, let’s begin.
1. Patrimonial letters.
While visiting - according to him in 1997 - GGR didn't criticize my work,
much less asked me how was I taking care of the Sítio. And I did not declare
that I was using the Letter of Venice, but that's what he says in his book.
Both the Venice Letter and the Florence Letter are documents full of
excellent intentions, but they were made for colder regions, where the vegetation
does not grow with the speed it has in our latitudes. In my view, many of the
recommendations contained therein are literal transpositions of procedures better
suited for architecture and static works of art.
In addition, they fail in one aspect: the delimitation of the undelimitable
– which are the actions that can be considered routine (and therefore exempted of consultations with official
committees of experts) and which are not?
The general impression is that its authors were academics who not even in
dreams had the experience of managing a tropical landscape heritage.
If the manager of a park in Brazil had to carry out, with the rigor that
GGR intends, all the bureaucratic procedures recommended by the mentioned
Letters, he would quickly exhaust the maintenance budget and go crazy.
Here, a director should be like a football coach: accompanied by a
committee that evaluates his performance. If the team starts to lose, the coach
is fired. In the SRBM it was the same: there was a council of notables –
connoisseurs of all the Letters – that could require my head at any time.
This is the formula that works. No consultations at each and every step to
higher entities (who often do not know what it is all about, otherwise would
not have appointed a director to solve the problems) – inevitably accompanied
by exhaustive documentation. Nature does not wait and, most of the time, if we
want to avoid the loss of assets, the decision must be quick.
In the proposed analogy, if something like the cited letters were applied
to a football team, the coach would have to consult the club's board to replace
an injured player, sending a medical report and the corresponding x-rays. Obviously,
that wouldn't work.
By the way, I transcribe an official ordinance, issued by Maria Elisa
Costa, the president of IPHAN who best understood the Sítio, probably because
his father and teacher, Dr. Lucio Costa, was the great friend who
"discovered" the landscape designer in Roberto and sent him in his
career.
Ordinance No. 051 of February 17, 2004.
The President of the National Institute of Historical and Artistic Heritage
- IPHAN - in the use of the attributions conferred by Annex I to Decree No.
4,811. of August 19, 2003.
·
Considering that
Sitio Roberto Burle Marx is an atypical unit in the set of museums and special
units of IPHAN:
·
Considering that it
is neither an environmental preservation unit nor a garden or park. but of a
botanical-landscape design laboratory;
·
Considering that it
is important that sitio's management is in the hands of Robério Dias, who
worked directly with Roberto Burle Marx for years:
·
Considering that
Robério Dias, with the collaboration and supervision of the Sítio's own
Council, due to his extensive experience, is able to discern what and how to
manage in the Sítio.
·
RESOLVE designate
Robério Dias to elaborate and format the management plan and indicate the preservation
criteria of the Sítio Roberto Burle Marx.
Whoever wants to know the
management plan prepared by the SRBM Council and by me, may access the link HERITAGE
2. Botanical collection.
GGR states that the Sítio has lost many species of plants and bases the
suspicion that I am the one to blame in some incipient drafts, considered by him
a reliable floristic inventory. GGR says he does not understand why I didn't
find these drafts on the Sítio. The answer is simple: because they weren't
there to be found. The lists presented by GGR in his book were not made
available to me.
Moreover, between Roberto's death and the beginning of my tenure as
director 17 months passed, in which much may have happened. GGR does not
examine the hypothesis that some botanical and documentary resources may have
been transferred to other places at the time when the Sítio was acephalous.
GGR tries to oppose such erased, imprecise, freehand made drafts, against
the precise, digital, georeferenced inventory, that we were doing on the
existing reality, with the help of several botanical experts.
GGR didn't even bother to see if the "missing" species and genera
were really missing or had not yet been registered.
By that time, our work already had more than 1,800 trees and palm trees
located and identified, but it was still far from complete and I believe that
it will never be, due to the size of the project, to new acquisitions and to accidental
or necessary changes that occur frequently. But the truth is that almost all
the supposedly missing species and genera are there at the Sítio for anyone who
wants to see them.
Moreover, the botanical ignorance that GGR suffers is evident, because,
although it is true that today there are no longer in the Sítio the genera, claimed by him, called Arikuryroba,
Chrysalidocarpus, Diplothemium, Neodypsis, Polyandrococos, Veitchia and
several others, this is due to the fact that the international botanical
community decided to abolish these names from Taxonomy. Such specimens remain
there, but their names have been changed, or included in other genera to
improve the phylogenetic classification. Arikuryroba today is Syagrus;
Chrysalidocarpus and Neodypsis now are just Dypsis; Diplothemium
and Polyandrococos became Allagoptera and the name Veitchia turned
into Adonidia. Obviously GGR didn't realize that before undertaking his attack.
The origin of some absences may also be because our inventory identified
some species differently. For example: Arenga caryotaefolia, in
the old inventory, is the same Arenga aculeata of the new. This
does not constitute an absence, but a disagreement in identification.
Another GGR error is his implicit assumption that all plants of the Sítio,
once planted, live forever. It does not pass through his head the possibility
that some did not adapt to the new environment and succumbed shortly after
Roberto brought them, although "surviving" in the lists of that time.
This is the case of Nypa fruticans, for example, of which we know
that was planted in the mangrove across the road, but I myself have never seen
even traces in place. Of course, it's more likely that this was an experiment
that didn't work out. GGR at one point says:
... the Sítio, in my opinion, is getting poorer. And the comparison between the two inventories, in my opinion, proves it.
How can a university professor think that a comparison between inventories,
even if completed, proves that there are more or fewer objects anywhere? Anyone
with common sense knows that inventories do not prove the existence, or inexistence, of
anything.
GGR visited the Sítio during a couple of hours in 1997 and till the
publication of his book he did not bother to go back there to find out if what
he wrote was true.
His contempt for reality – individual specimens planted in the Sítio
– is such that he allows himself to accuse based solely on the comparison of
lists – mere words written on papers – which, in addition to being
incomplete, are liable to errors of identification, location, updating, etc.
Even if I were a crazy dendroclast eager to destroy, I could not eliminate from
the Sítio the species that GGR wants to put on my account. I must say that, on
the contrary, the collection of palm trees was added, during my time, of the
following species: Metroxylon warburgii, Archontophoenix
maxima, Astrocayum alatum, Bactris militaris,
Bentinckia nicobarica, Brahea armata, Carpoxylon
macrospermum, Caryota no, Dypsis onilahensis,
Beccariophoenix madagascariensis, Borassus aethiopum,
Borassus flabelifer, Hyophorbe indica, Johannesteijmannia
altifrons, Kerriodoxa elegans, Latania loddigesii,
Livistona decora, Livistona mariae, Prestoea
nudigera, Ptychosperma caryotoides, Raphis
multifida, Ravenea hildebrandtii, Siphokentia
beguinii, Thrinax radiata, Trachycarpus wagnerianus,
Wallichia densiflora etc..
This addition occurred, not because we were committed to it, but by
contributions that we were not capable to refuse, in memory of Roberto who
would never reject so valuable and new items for his collection.
Other botanical families also had additions. After the donation, Roberto
acquired a farm of perhaps about 50,000 m², adjacent to the Sítio, to continue
exercising his profession, because he never ceased to design and execute
gardens commercially as Haru's partner in Burle Marx & Cia. Ltda.
In this farm there were some plants, newly introduced by him, that were
already being used in projects and that, therefore, had no reason to be absent
from the collection of the Sítio. So, the fantastic Polyaltia longifolia,
Bombax malabaricum, Clerodendron quadriloculare, Ludwigia
sedioides etc., after understandings with the mentioned firm, were
added to the Sítio's collection.
3. Nomenclature.
Surprisingly, GGR got in trouble with the names I gave to the polygons in
which the Sítio was divided!
In creating a base on which we could work, we developed several thematic
maps. One of them divided the Sítio into squares of 50m aside, another
according to the slope, another according to the insolation and so on,
following the lessons of McHarg, in several different themes that, combined in ad
hoc made applications, assist in the management of that precious heritage.
The thematic map of polygons, in which the land was divided according to naked
eye recognizable features, would not be so useful without names to which we,
who took care of the collection – gardeners, guards, guides, technicians and
director – could refer. Knowing the names of the polygons saved us the insane
work of having to show photos, indicate in maps or go to the site in person.
Therefore, these names are anything that helps us in the conservation,
maintenance, protection, supervision etc. All we needed was a common language.
The names chosen for the polygons delimited on this map were, first, those
that already existed, such as Carrasqueira, Largo do Cascalho, Santa Luzia, Casa de
Pedra, Barracão etc.. These were names used
by Roberto and everyone on the Sítio. Next come the names that Roberto created,
such as Sombral Graziela Barroso, Sombral Margaret Mee, Pérgola
da Flor de Jade etc.. Finally, the ones we had to invent quickly and that
we went on assimilating. The reason was eminently practical, functional and
internal.
Following Roberto's example, we associated each of the greenhouse-polygons
to names of people he revered, had friendship or worked for the improvement of
the Sítio. But there was never any intention to officiate anything, do inauguration
ceremonies or things like that.
In regard for the other polygons, their names relate to something that the
place evoked, without much concern. If GGR couldn't see the relationship, he
could just ask me. Instead, to criticize some names he made historical, etymological, anthropological
and even psychological considerations, but he reaches the maximum when
referring to the polygon entitled Cenário de Montezuma, saying that the
Aztec chief has nothing to do with the Sítio:
For example, what does Roberto Burle Marx's Sítio have to do with giving a part of it the name Montezuma Scenery? Nothing at all! The area attributed to this place, from where a beautiful panorama is observed, has nothing to do with one of the two Aztec emperors who had the name Montezuma and who reigned over Mexico, the first at the turn of the fifteenth century and the second in the first twenty years of the following century. Even Montezuma's original etymology doesn't help to understand why that name was chosen for this Sítio. In fact, Montezuma, in the Aztec language Motecuhzoma, means "the one who becomes boss with anger". The chosen place has nothing to with "anger"! It is, therefore, an absolute arbitrium, a freedom that the director of the Sítio took without anyone authorizing! Or, subconsciously, he thought about how much anger he put into becoming director of the Sítio, prevailing, yes, over other suitors for this post!
I clarify that Montezuma designates a genus of Malvaceae! The
road that goes from the 50m quota towards the highest part of the Sítio has a
side planted with several specimens of the beautiful tree called Montezuma
speciosissima and the set situated in this polygon forms a green wall,
sometimes flowery, which evokes a theatrical setting.
4. Appointment.
In the last sentence of the previous quote, GGR insinuates that I may have
forced my appointment to be director, stepping over the ambitions of others!
Nothing farther from the truth!
This is what happened: in 1994, soon after the death of Roberto, the
president of IPHAN at the time, the architect Glauco Campello, decided to call
José Tabacow, Roberto's former partner, to the position.
As for me, in 1985, after completing my participation in the work that the
donation of the Sítio to the PróMemória Foundation (today IPHAN) involved – meetings, consultations with lawyers, drafting of the
statutes, creation of the entity called SRBM etc. – I moved away from the
"train of joy" formed by the distribution of jobs in the newly
created entity. Only in 1995, more than a year after Roberto's death, I was surprised
by the invitation made by José Tabacow, after he offered the position to other
people who did not accept the responsibility.
So, I didn't need any anger, much less a “montezumian” one. I was called,
perhaps, by the merits that no one less than Roberto himself saw in me, as documented
in an interview granted to Guilherme Mazza Dourado, published in Revista Projeto
nº 146 of October 1991:
Landscape design is a relatively new profession, in which much is being experienced. I'm always interested in any job well done. I have friends who are doing gardens very well. Several people who have been in my atelier are working, such as Chacel, Leandro Silva Delgado, from Uruguay, who makes gardens optimally; there is a top-quality artist in Colombia, Leiva, who knows the profession well. For these I have admiration, because they know and seek to do in the best possible way. Robério, who worked with me, knows very well the problems related to the garden. I think I've already left some seeds, which will sprout and complete many ideas that I may not have been able to accomplish.
It should mentioned that, with reference to landscape design, few of his
disciples were documentedly praised by Roberto. I had stopped working with him
in 1981 and this discourages anyone who wishes to insinuate that the compliment
was not spontaneous.
5. The case of the fig tree.
GGR decided to
criticize a short article I wrote for laypeople, in a series entitled Estrelas do Sítio Burle Marx (Stars of the Sítio Burle
Marx) and which can be accessed in STARS
The article deals with a monumental fig tree – Ficus mysorensis,
var. pubescens – which is in a place of great exposure, central in the
SRBM. This tree has spectacular roots, but they were invisible, covered by a
climbing aracea, quite common in Rio de Janeiro, called Syngonium
podophyllum (pé-de-galinha). The removal of the vine corrected the
concealment of the formidable roots.
Roberto, in his practice, taught us landscape design principles and some of
them were fundamental, although they seem primary as: do not show what is
ugly and do not hide what is beautiful. I do not know if GGR
is aware of these principles because he argues that the roots of the monumental
fig tree should remain covered by the pé-de-galinha. His main argument
is that otherwise the fig tree could die! I.e.: he prefers to hide the
roots than to expose the tree to a risk that exists in his mind.
There are many mistakes in that.
Someone who claims to be an expert in landscape design, before criticizing,
should base his opinions with some objective fact, happened in the history of
the world, the reference of some fig tree, or any tree at all, dead by the
removal of a vine that climbed his trunk. But GGR opts for the rhetorical and
demagogic ecologism that plagues humanity today. I assure, however, that it is
easier for the pé-de-galinha to kill the fig tree by producing a
pathogen-friendly microenvironment than the huge tree to die by getting rid of
a creeper that nothing good causes to it. In this regard, Dr. Jorge Pedro
Pereira Carauta – who was perhaps the greatest specialist in fig trees in
Brazil – says in his doctoral thesis, entitled
Ficus (Moraceae) in Brazil: Conservation and Taxonomy, defended
at Mackenzie University, São Paulo, in 1988, and published in the journal
Albertoa, 1989, Vol. 2, pag. 319:
As parenthesis, it is appropriate to mention the largest pest of fig trees in cultivation in parks and urbanized areas: the poor habit of planting Araceae at the base, as "ornamentation" of the stem. This causes several problems, starting with the fact of hiding the most important characteristic of the species, which is its sculptural trunk. A tree that could live more than 100 years will die around 10 years, from the moment the Aracea was planted.... The death of the fig tree is caused by the fact that these Araceae have a very rapid growth and cause the rotting of the surface of the stem and also attract termites and other predatory insects that, starting their nests in the tissues of the roots, end up attacking the stem killing or causing diseases in the tree. The fig tree loses all ornamental beauty, even more so that the leaves and branches of the Aracea drown out the sprouting of the branches and accelerate the death of the hostess.
GGR still accuses Roberto (who in his last times had serious problems of
sight) of seeing this plague and let it develop. He also defends the aides who,
even seeing everything clearly, did nothing. To top it off, he also praises
them, calling them "attentive and respectful of Roberto Burle Marx's
desire".
In this item GGR incurs in a serious error – quite common today – that of privileging
not Ecology, but a mushy ecologism to the detriment of Landscape Design and,
therefore, of not understanding Roberto's legacy.
GGR considered that removing a dangerous hemi-epiphyte from an important
tree is an attack on ecology!
However, ecological problems are not corrected with landscape design, but
with awareness, legislation, guidelines, supervision and education.
Roberto's explicit actions in defense of ecology were exhausted in his
conferences, writings and protests in the media. Therefore, there have never been ecological experiences
at the Sítio. On the contrary, many
ecologists saw with reserves the removal of plants from the natural habitat
that Roberto practiced. He was criticized in this respect, although this would
lead, in many cases, to perhaps the rescue of botanical species from
extinction. In any case, it was not the landscape designer, but the man
Roberto Burle Marx – a public character – who played an invaluable role in the
defense of the environment.
Let no one get confused: Roberto has never deluded himself to the point of
thinking that a garden or park could correct ecologically anything. Parks and
gardens are spots upon the Earth, while ecology deals with vast areas
such as the cerrado, the caatinga, the rain forest. The ecological influence
that a landscape designer can exert is indirect and this is how the
landscape designer RBM influenced legions, not creating "ecologically
correct" gardens.
Explaining in a simple way: by contacting nature
ordered by man and for man the ordinary citizen feels good, begins
to like plants and, as a consequence, the probability of continuing to pollute
and devastate the environment is reduced.
Roberto always told us that it was necessary to know the natural associations
of plants, but not to make servile copies of nature. That's
why he didn't hesitate to use exotic trees in his projects. That’s why the
percentage of native plants in the Sítio’s collection is below 70%. That's why
the landscape design of the Copacabana promenade has only two native species.
That’s, still, why one of the gardens that most made his fame was the Euclides
da Cunha Square, in Recife, where he recreated a caatinga in the middle of the
urban region, situated in an Atlantic forest, privileging symbolic and
aesthetic values, although strictly antiecological.
The easy discourse of an emotional
environmentalism conveyed by the big media is a fashion to which lay
people adhere without reasoning, but this is not expected of someone that
intends to teach landscape design and, moreover, that imagines himself able to
criticize with property someone who worked 11 years in projects with Roberto,
was part of his team in many botanical excursions and who was advised in the SRBM
management by an attentive council
composed of botanists of the caliber of
Luiz Emygdio de Melo Filho and Nanuza Luiza de Menezes, as well as by the landscape
architects Fernando Chacel and José Tabacow and other prominent people in the
arts – Antonio Gabriel de Paula Fonseca – and in urbanism – Augusto Ivan de
Freitas Pinheiro.
There is a common type among Roberto's admirers: the one who worships him,
without understanding his message. Such people tend to supply this lack with
idolatry and prefer to see the Sítio, not as a place for experiments in
landscape design, as Roberto defined it, but as a temple of exaltation to
his personality. They imagine that Roberto donated his Sítio for this, because
it is perhaps what they would have done in his place, or rather, for this type
of person it is inconceivable to donate a Sítio for another purpose than the
cult of one's own memory. But this certainly was not the reason for the
donation. Roberto was much greater than this. He was distressed by thinking
that the landscape principles he acquired and established in a life of
continuous work could be lost. That is why his main legacy is about the
transmission of his how-to-make-gardens knowledge.
GGR is included in the type of admirer that, not understanding the message,
chose the way to act as a defender of the Sítio, repeating cliché phrases, such
as those proposed in house and garden magazines. In his effort, GGR disserves
the cause he thinks he is defending. No wonder, because in favor of the mediocre
goals he can imagine to attribute to his idol, he despises Roberto's explicit
orientations. GGR is far from understand that to maintain culture it is
necessary to assimilate and retransmit it. And in the present case, this will
not be achieved by doing the impossible task that GGR intends: to immobilize
nature in the Sítio Roberto Burle Marx.
Apropos, I transcribe an excerpt from an article of mine, accessible in
full in HERITAGE .
The only assets that can be kept fixed, in the case of
the natural, botanical and landscape design collections of the Sítio Roberto
Burle Marx, are immaterial or intangible: the principles of landscape
composition adopted and established by Roberto, his contribution to botanical
science, the aesthetic appreciation of the flora that exists in our latitudes
and the testimony of his immense love for plants and life. The fleeting
materialization of these patrimonies in each successive aspect of the
vegetation that constitutes the landscape of the Sítio needs to be constantly
updated, i.e., rediscovered when lost, to ensure its expression in face of the changes imposed by time. And the
active maintenance of this expression, based on the principles that presided
over its genesis, and were achieved throughout its development, is the only way
these assets may continue to exist.
6. Visual impairment.
Contesting the lack
of the sense of vision that Roberto suffered, in his last years for distances
greater than 10m, GGR offers a personal testimony originated during a visit
that both made to a garden of Roberto himself: "He saw everything! He
knew where each plant was!". Well, this “proof” is equivalent to
that which someone, denying Beethoven's deafness, could claim: "He
knew the passages of each instrument in the Ninth Symphony!"
7. Popular names.
GGR points out an error in a popular name:
There's a mistake in this quote. It is not the beautiful Syngonium podophyllum that in Brazil is called crow's foot, but Eleusine indica.
Each plant has a single scientific name. This cannot be
said in relation to popular names, as there may be several for
the same plant, as well as the same for several plants. Such names vary by state, city and even neighborhoods. This is the
case of the crow's foot which in Guaratiba designates the Araceae of the genus
Syngonium. Not even the most experienced botanists,
because they know that it is impossible to know the popular names of each
place, enter into discussions of this type. In fact, that's why a scientific nomenclature was created.
8. Amazon Expedition.
GGR slanders me by saying that I lied about my participation in the
botanical expedition that Roberto undertook with a team to the Amazon. To make
worse the abominable image he tries to create for me, he claims, that I
attribute myself to merits that I don't have. But what elements did GGR use to
come up with that statement? He writes:
One of the most important expeditions in the forests of Brazil, Roberto Burle Marx carried it out in 1983, from September 27 to November 17. For this expedition there is a preliminary and important clarification to be made. In fact, says the current director the of Sítio: "José Tabacow had the idea to remake von Martius' journey and invited me to participate." Wrong! On page two of the publication with the results of the expedition are the names of all participants of the expedition, including that of José Tabacow, but there is no that of Mr. Robério Dias. Perhaps Mr. Robério Dias ignores that there is an official document of the expedition, a kind of logbook, and this led him to make the statement that we have previously reported with what is a self-attributed "merit" that he does not have, because his presence in the expedition simply did not exist. Mr. Robério Dias therefore publishes in his blog completely inaccurate and unfounded news.
Let us examine in detail the quantity and quality of the errors contained in this accusation:
· GGR considers that the fact that I claim to have been invited to an excursion is equivalent to the statement that I participated in it! Where is the logic of this deduction? We are facing a statement worthy of a functional illiterate – the one who reads, does not understand what he read and attributes to it the meaning he was expecting to read.
· There is no mistake in what I said. In fact, I was invited to the Amazon expedition and even participated in the preliminary meetings, but I gave up going and never stated, nor would I have reasons to, that I went to the Amazon on Roberto's expedition.
· The expedition to which I refer in the excerpt cited by GGR is the Von Martius Expedition, carried out in 1985. The participants were José Tabacow, Gustavo Martinelli, Cynthia Chamas, Luiz Cancio, Laura Mourão and me. We followed the same path taken in July 1817 by the great German naturalist, between Araçuaí and Januária, on a route of about 650km, totally in the interior of the state of Minas Gerais, documenting the local flora and environmental changes that happened since then. The results were presented in an exhibition, in 1986, at the Paço Imperial (house of culture belonging to IPHAN). Although, at first, it had nothing to do with Roberto, this expedition gave rise to the donation of the Sítio to the ProMemória Foundation, as reported in DONATION
· GGR confuses two expeditions so different in dates, routes, participants and objectives, that it is up to us to doubt: was he “absent minded” enough to merely confuse them, or just pretended he had taken one for the other, hoping that no one would notice his artifice? Tertium non datur.
· GGR insinuates that because I did not know that there is an official document listing the participants of the amazon expedition, I lied to gain prestige. This shows that GGR evaluates me according to his own moral stature.
9. Inconvenience of a thesis about the Sítio.
GGR tries to create an ethical law to condemn me by the theme I choose
for my thesis. Here's what he says in his book:
In fact, Mr. Robério Dias elaborated, in January 2008, a doctoral thesis in Geography presenting a thesis on the Sítio!
Great elegance of behavior!
If, when I was PhD coordinator in Landscape Project, I had been introduced to a doctoral student who intended to "explore" his eventual place of work to do the thesis, I would have without a doubt vigorously dissuaded him!
A minimum of "elegance", not to say "ethics", it is necessary that there is always in the university world, especially in coping with this main step – the doctorate – which can open any paths subsequent to teaching. This was not the case with the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Departamento de Geografia, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Geografia.
The question that this case demands is: how can someone, who has no notion
of ethics, attempt to create ethical laws? Paradoxically, it seems that only
this type of person allows himself such ambitions. The phantasmagoria, which
GGR tries to implant en passant in the real world, has no conditions of
existence, otherwise there would be a remarkable academic impoverishment. And he
tries to do it without a single argument, as if it was something established
and notorious!
There are numerous examples of excellent theses made about various
entities, by people who worked in these same entities. And often among the
people who run institutions are the ones that know them better. On the subject,
I took the testimony of an emeritus professor of UFRJ, Dr. B. Ernani Diaz,
professor in structural calculus, former mayor of the University City:
The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and other Brazilian universities promote and encourage the creation of theses on various technical, cultural, artistic subjects, etc., based on experiences lived by students already trained in extracurricular activities. These theses acquire importance to the professional activities in general, because students who have previous experience are more able to develop previously treated topics. In the professional activities, the proposed thesis themes cannot be developed completely and with definitive results. But in the subsequent research, students are able to develop the topics already known, deepen the subject problems, carry out on the research and then write the thesis that serves to record the research done academically. These studies are done under the guidance of teachers who generally have another type of knowledge capable of encouraging students to develop the proposed themes.
Everyone wins with this practice: the country with the research carried out on the thesis subject, the training of the doctoral student and the increase of the technical, artistic or cultural knowledge of the advisor.
On the other hand, it should be commented that performing academic work in the workplace is a procedure common in Brazil. Starting with the Brazilian university itself, where theses of professionals employed at the university are prepared in their workplaces and where special studies are performed by contract for firms outside the university.
In other cases, professional university employees develop academic research topics while working at the university on the same thesis theme. In civil engineering are known cases of doctoral candidates who develop common themes, carried out at project firms, while still working in the same firm.
In some cases, the very firm, where the student works, promotes the preparation of the doctoral thesis. There are even in UFRJ the so-called professional postgraduate courses, where the focus is to develop professional themes of a more practical character than theses of a more academic and theoretical character.
So, there's nothing inelegant about it, much less a lack of ethics.
It should be noted that GGR tries to invent an absurd ethical law,
applicable to me, but does not follow, himself, the existing ethical laws that
everyone knows, such as not speaking ill behind the back, not
slandering, not accusing without evidence, not making a reckless
judgment and not giving false
testimony.
GGR once again privileges what is less important over the most important.
Instead of worrying about "elegance" and etiquette superstitions, that
only exist in his mind, he should stick to the essence of a thesis and pay
attention to the fact that it does not matter where the doctoral student works, but the knowledge that a thesis provides.
Later, within the same thesis subject, he insinuates other improprieties,
relying on biased interpretations of information collected on the Internet. He
even suggests that the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, by its Department
of Post-Graduation Studies in Geography, is involved in a fraud involving
funding. GGR sees no ethic limitations for his vendetta.
My thesis proposes the application of modern GIS (Geographic Information System) tools for the management of an area of landscape design heritage. There I
show how such digital resources can be used in various ways. It is an
innovative matter and the place where I could test it in practice, by chance is
the Sítio Roberto Burle Marx. What can be objectionable about this? Only in the
head of a person more concerned with labels
and gossips than with the real benefits that may come from such a thesis,
especially being about a subject hitherto insufficiently established as is the
preservation of parks and gardens protected as cultural heritage.
10. Evaluation of management actions at the SRBM.
In my thesis I present a way to justify the actions of maintenance of the Sítio,
quantifying each action under eight different approaches. Let us use an example
already mentioned in item 5 of these comments – that of removing the pé-de-galinha
from the fig tree.
To eradicate the harmful vine, 8 forms of evaluation were
observed, according to the following aspects or axes: botanical, ecological,
aesthetic, horticulturist, experimental, economic, educational and
institutional.
Anyone who wants details about each axis can download my thesis by clicking
on THESIS and read item 3.5.
GGR in his book condemns the removal of the vine based on a single approach
– the ecological – and does it in the wrong way, because ecology does not
advocate for the association of plants from continents as
different as America (Syngonium podophyllum) and Asia (Ficus
mysorensis). But, reasoning for the absurd, let's imagine that
ecologically it would be more appropriate to keep the Syngonium climbing the
fig tree. Still, it would not be advisable, because the damages that jump to
the eye when we evaluate the issue by the other aspects leave no doubt that it
was necessary to take the Aracea out:
·
In botanical terms,
there are many specimens of Syngonium podophyllum in several
other parts of the Sítio, so, there was no impoverishment of our collection.
·
In aesthetic terms, no discussion, because the fig tree, after its roots were on display, became
perhaps the most photographed plant of the Sítio.
Even if it is true that beauty is in the eyes of those who see it, it is
possible to extract some objectivity from this fact by counting how many people
have praised a particular thing or being.
GGR, by the news we have so far, is
the only person in the history of mankind who referred to the Syngonium as
"bellissimo" (beautiful).
·
In horticulturist
terms, it is an indisputable mistake to risk one of the most important
specimens, unique in the Sítio, to favor what, in this case, is a real pest.
·
Experimentally
speaking, one cannot decide on the maintenance of the Syngonium, because among
the experiences practiced in the Sítio there are not those of the type that aim
to reinvent the wheel.
·
In economic terms it
is necessary to consider the risk of a huge damage: that the Syngonium killed
the fig tree, as already warned with emphasis by Dr. Carauta.
·
In educational terms,
it is not appropriate to carry on a diseducational message, as was the punctual
situation before the removal of the Syngonium.
·
Finally, with regard
to the institutional missions of the SRBM (see my thesis, item 3.5.8), the
removal of the Syngonium agrees with at least 50% of them, while its
maintenance, hiding and endangering the fig tree, does not agree with any.
GGR calls this multiple evaluation method, proposed by me, as
"naïve" and "banal", but he does not explain why, i.e., as he
had no arguments, he resorted to insults.
We know that evaluations tend to be ultimately subjective – and that's how
they are done today, if not in all, in the vast majority of the world's gardens
–, but the form presented in my thesis minimizes the negative side of this trend
and makes judgment as objective as possible. Listing and requiring evaluations by
different approaches decreases the likelihood of incurring in errors such, as the one done by GGR when defending the maintenance of a pest
that could be fatal to an important tree.
It is said that the worst blind is the one who does not want to see, but
this definitely does not apply to GGR in relation to my thesis. He really did
not understand it. Otherwise, he would not state this
in his book:
That's why what Mr. Robério Dias says about the suitability of what was
done on the Sítio from 2001 to 2007 is false! A quick examination of the
processing I did in the original data [of his thesis], and which I summed up in
two documents, indicates, that almost none of the types of actions performed on
the Sítio presented negative results!
But what did GGR expect? It is obvious that the actions evaluated
negatively have not been undertaken! It would be crazy to conclude that an
action should not be done and still perform it. It is also obvious that
actions that have not been done are not included in the list of the actions
that have been done! Or did GGR expect us to list what we did and what we avoided doing? This would be as useful as making an inventory that included both
existing plants and those that do not exist on the Sítio!
It becomes clear, after this supremely illogical deduction of GGR, that
this fellow, who pretends to be a critic, does not know how to think, or at
least is unable to reason clearly!
But GGR doesn't stop! Further on he is shocked by another conclusion of his
"brilliant intelligence":
Almost everything that was done increased, therefore, the value of the
subsequent situation! The Sítio even changed the value of the subsequent situation,
compared to the previous situation, by more than sixty percent!
In other words, he thinks that the sum of the percentages of changes in some parts of a whole equals the change percentage of the whole!
Is it admissible for a university professor this way of reasoning? I
believe that nowhere in the world! Even for primary school gymnastic teachers,
a minimum of arithmetic notions is required.
11. Criticism of my proposals.
GGR in his book
seeks to discredit the proposals that I present, in my thesis, for the fruition
of the great SRBM’s potential still unknown to the public. And he does not hide
his ill will when analyzing them.
·
Chairlift. GGR is against. He states a direction for the public visitation,
saying that the Sítio should be seen bottom up, that is, in the opposite direction to what a chairlift would permit. But, when Roberto was alive, there
was no public visitation to the Sítio. His guests for the sumptuous Sunday lunches
– which until 1994 constituted approximately 99% of the total visitors – went in
their cars straight to his house, which is at the level 30m. After lunch they
were all going to visit some part or plants which Roberto was interested in
showing. Nothing beyond that. So, to speak about an established sense of
"reading" the Sítio makes no sense at all.
The proposal for a chairlift aims to show parts of the Sítio, that deserve much to be known, but are still hidden
from the public. I would even say that they
are unmissable, if they were not almost inaccessible, at 120m altitude - the
equivalent of a 40 floors building.
But how to take the visitors there without
creating a vehicle traffic that would be totally incompatible with the Florence
letter?
The solution came to me inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum,
where visitors are allowed to go to the top floor by elevator and to descend on
a gentle slope while enjoying the art works till the entrance level. We already
had the most expensive part of the elements needed for so much: the slope and
the art works. All that was missing was the elevator. Translating: the slope is
the solid road built by Roberto's brother, Guilherme Siegfried Marx; the art works
are the incredible plants and the brilliant compositions that Roberto spread along
the road; the elevator, in this case, would be the chairlift. This would have
one more function, besides that of the Guggenheim's elevator: to show the breathtaking
view that unfolds from the Sepetiba bay - an almost unprecedented vision!
One more advantage: take out from the Sítio the parking lot that hardly holds
the cars of an increasing number of visitors. The initial station of the chairlift
would be on the other side of the road, in an independent lot, where there is
plenty of space.
·
New Greenhouses
(Sombrais). GGR condemns my
design for optimization of the greenhouses:
It seems to me that such a structure, however responsive to some of Sítio's
needs, is quite out of scale and, for that reason, out of place. It alters, and
in a decisive measure, the internal conditions of the lower area of Sítio,
significantly modifies the view of this area from the main house - making it
very visible, while it is now, from this observation point, almost hidden by
vegetation.
As for being "out of scale", there can be no opinion more
subjective than such an assertion. I say it's not out of scale, so what?
Raising by 3.5m the height of a cover which has 14,000m² is, in physical terms,
almost imperceptible. GGR stands as an arbitrator and, once again, uses only
one approach – in this case, the aesthetic – to evaluate the proposition. But there
are many other approaches that should be considered. Those who want to know the
reasons and justifications for the reform of the Sítio's greenhouses, may click
on GREENHOUSES .
As for modifying "significantly the view of this area from the main
house", this would not happen, because any views between house and greenhouses
are blocked by the trees between the two structures. With this statement, GGR makes clear that does
not know the Sítio. He might have visited it very few times. As we have said,
from the 1997 visit to the date I stopped being a director, December 2011, he
was there not even once.
12. The destruction of the Sítio.
Throughout his book
GGR refers negatively to the aspect of the Sítio many times. He says that the
Sítio is "excessively clean" and "with a general feeling of neglection" (!?),
that "it is so mistreated", that there are "repeated and clumsy
attempts to make the Sítio look more and more like a playground", that it
is getting poorer and that it goes through a "devastation", that
suffers "a massacre made with general disinterest", that
"radical and destructive changes are taking place in the Sítio" etc.
etc. etc. etc.
GGR's opinion is in opposition to that of many people and entities:
·
IPHAN technicians. On
several occasions I have had favorable evaluations throughout the lawsuit that
was anonymously moved against me.
·
Michelin Guide. The
first time the world's most famous tourist guide visited somewhere outside
Europe and North America, only 19 places across the state of Rio de Janeiro
received the maximum of 3 stars, including the SRBM. MICHELIN
·
Visitors. The Sítio's
quotation, according to the spontaneous evaluation of visitors on Google
Business, for many years has maintained an average of 4.8 in a maximum of 5.
·
UNESCO delegation. On
December 9, 2009, a UNESCO delegation visited the Sítio and the reaction of the
technicians was very favorable to its inclusion in the Cultural Heritage of
Humanity – a process that is being completed in 2020.
·
On April 1, 2010, UNESCO's
assistant general director for culture, Francesco Bandarin, visited the Sítio and made a point of photographing and being photographed next to the roots of the fig tree in question in item 5.
·
On August 23, 2011, the landscape architect Petra Blaisse and the architect Rem Koolhas visited the Sítio and were pleased with what they saw.
·
In 2009, architect
Daniel Liebeskind interrupted his visit to go and pick up his daughter from the
hotel, because he considered essential that she saw the Sítio as well.
·
Etc. etc. etc. etc.
etc. I do not have in hands the visitors’ book of the Sítio
that is full of praise. But the list is long.
This means that, from a lay audience to some big international names,
the overwhelming majority approved the measures I took during my tenure. It
would be the case to contrast these views with that of GGR.
Let's examine whether GGR knows what landscape design is. In his book he
states:
The work of the landscape designer is, or should be, always a delicate
operation that aims to deepen the deep character of the places, not a surgery
operation, which even intending to be aesthetic surgery is still surgery!
Everything is used to justify someone's behavior. In fact, the reference to
Michelangelo Buonarroti serves Mr. Robério Dias to affirm that pruning,
transplants and eradication, which alter the physical condition of the
entities and their spatial perception,
are necessary all the time.True, but does it not cross the mind of Mr.
Robério Dias that "transplants", "eradication" and reasons
of "spatial perception" etc., are all operations that the designer
does and not the administrator? When Roberto Burle Marx did these operations,
of course, none of us had anything to oppose. But Mr. Robério Dias was put in
charge of the Sítio, not to its redesign, he must preserve the Sítio, not
transform it!
Right in the first sentence
GGR disqualifies, at least, Andrè le Notre, Capability Brown and Roberto Burle
Marx! What were the reasons GGR found to think that Versailles, Blenheim Park
and Aterro do Flamengo were the result of "delicate operations"? GGR
does not even admit an "aesthetic surgery" and thus becomes a
champion of landscape delicacy.
Further on, he confuses landscape design with architectural procedures,
recommending, in other words, that the Sítio's administrator should keep nature
immobilized. He forgets that plants are born, grow, multiply and die, modifying
microclimates, hiding views, killing each other etc. etc. etc. He seems to ignore
that, in view of these changes, it is necessary to decide at each moment what
to do and that, in the absence of the author of the project, someone has to do it,
preferably based on the same landscape design principles that the author of the
project adopted.
As for the principle attributed by GGR to Roberto, that "a garden is beautiful when it is not very maintained",
I do not recognize this statement as authentic from Burle Marx. There is
nothing similar in any other interview, conference, document or documentary
that I am aware of. Much less Roberto's practice corroborates it.
Every time he had guests, he made sure everything was very well kept.
And he was very demanding about it. The same with respect to the projects of
his own. He was happy to see them well maintained and very upset if they
weren't. This alleged statement, made exclusively in a GGR interview, is
therefore very suspicious.
Later on you can read in the book of GGR:
In fact, Mr. Robério Dias recalls that Roberto Burle Marx loved to repeat
that "the garden is nature ordained
by man and for man." I'm sure Roberto Burle Marx said that! He said
that to the gardens, not the Sítio! It did not occur to the current director of
the Sítio, when writing what he reported, that Roberto Burle Marx also said
that he, who had designed so many gardens, did not have one for himself! And in
saying this he was referring to the Sítio, which, in Roberto Burle Marx's head
was not a garden, it was something different and more, it was an outdoor laboratory!
And what would be the experiments practiced in this outdoor laboratory? Something
about the cure of cancer? Cold fusion? No, none of that, but it seems that GGR
must be thinking of something like that.
Someone needs to warn him that
Roberto's experiments on his Sítio were
all about gardens!
And the experiments may be divided into two types:
· The adaptation of the plants selected in nature by their landscape potential, which were brought from other ecosystems, on excursions. The indicator of success in this type of experiment was not to get the plant to survive the change of habitat, but its multiplication in the Sítio, that is, the plant was considered acclimated when it could reproduce.
· After the success in the first type of experiment was verified, the multiplied plants were used in association with others, in an aesthetic essay that also aimed to unburden the greenhouses, test them elsewhere in the Sítio and maximize the probability of not losing them, planting them in more than one place.
It was only after this double trial period that Roberto used to include
them in projects. He considered this function the most important of the Sítio, as
he defined it: "The Sítio is my
place of experiments in Landscaping".
In view of the above, it becomes evident once again that the maintenance of
the Sítio cannot be that of an immobilized garden, as recommended by GGR,
because many plants of the greenhouses are still in the experimental situation of the first type
and we may consider that all the others are in the second. This second type only
ends if the experiment fails, i.e., while the plant is functioning well, it
remains observed, as some of its characteristics may be revealed many years
after been planted. Examples: Hibiscus
tiliaceus, Bauhinia blakeana etc.
GGR contradicts on its own terms, because a true maintenance of the Sítio cannot be superficial as he wishes - one that conserves just the appearance -, even if this was
possible. Preserving Roberto's legacy includes actively recognizing its most important function, the one that made the Sítio unique and was the mechanism of its constitution, the motor of its development
and reason for its existence.
13. Pruning – a scarecrow created by GGR.
In discussions there is a fallacious technique usually employed by those
who do not praise intellectual honesty. It is the so-called Scarecrow
Technique: it consists in staging, in plain sight and with all possible
vehemence, the destruction of a necessarily indefensible argument, ad hoc constructed and falsely attributed to his opponent. With that, the “wise
guy” hopes to forge, in the most inattentive people, the impression that if he
is right at that point, he must be also right in the rest.
That is exactly what GGR tries to do by assigning to me the mania of
pruning vegetation. But in fact, all those who learned from Roberto are totally
opposed to this practice for the misplaced motives that GGR presents in his
book. Pruning on the Sítio was done only when indicated by our phytopathologist
or, in the case of vines, when they extended beyond the desirable limits.
14. Future.
With regard to the visit of the Portuguese billionaire Joe Berardo and a
possible sponsorship for the creation of Roberto Burle Marx Park, in front of
the Sítio, GGR triggers an unnecessary alarm. He says the intention of the
interested party was to take over the whole Sítio, deceiving us all. However, the
Sítio is an entity listed by federal and state heritage and therefore could
never be sold or transferred. The mere assumption that IPHAN could be deceived
implies considering it an inept institution.
The idea was restricted
to a partnership for the creation of a park, in an area of 400,000 m²
independent of the Sítio, nothing more. A preliminary study, accompanied by the
description and justifications, of the Roberto Burle Marx Park can be seen in PARK
15. Lawsuit.
GGR scavenged the lawsuit in which I was declared innocent. At this point
he shows he wants not only to point out errors in my management and thesis, but
that he hates me to the point of trying to destroy me professionally.
The great English landscape designer Humphry Repton said: "The art of landscape
gardening is the only art which everyone professes to understand, and even to
practice, without having studied its rudiments." True, there is never a shortage of
laypeople to criticize any park or garden project.
And when the subject is a protected
garden, it is difficult, for those who consider themselves cultural heritage
experts, to give up trying to apply in it the procedures established for static
works of art and architecture. The peculiar dynamics of life, when declared
worthy of conservation for posterity, becomes too complex for such critics and,
probably because of mental laziness, instead of working new concepts, they
prefer to use those they already possess, even if they don't work in this new
environment. I believe that this is
the cornerstone on which the case against me has been triggered.
Other vectors concurred, one of which
has already been mentioned, that of the dissatisfaction provoked in some by the
donation Roberto did of the Sítio to PróMemória (now IPHAN).
One more: the environmental hysteria
that prohibits the removal of trees, even if they are clandestine and are
soiling a protected garden where they were born spontaneously and no one took the
responsibility of eradicating them early on, when they were still small plants.
This combination of vectors, coupled
with the sensationalism of a press that is always thirsting for scandals, can
cause a lot of annoyance in someone who is conscientiously caring for an area
in these conditions.
Making the truth finally prevail was
laborious. During the 16 years I remained director, there were frequent
unfounded complaints, reports that demanded response, attendance to the Public
Prosecutor's Office, justifications to justice, all this to distract me from my
mission – the maintenance of the botanical and landscape cultural heritage of
the SRBM.
Finally, justice was done, and the
result was good.
It could be better if, after the
lawsuit, a
discussion about the concepts I proposed to comprehend and classify the
Cultural Heritage had taken place
within IPHAN.
Aiming to remedy the lack of consensus
on the subject, I did investigate the confusion and concluded that the root
of all errors lies in the classification of cultural assets, falsely based on
the material/immaterial dichotomy.
The need to work without great upsets moved me toward a model that would
prevent future lawsuits and include, unlike the current one, landscape design
assets. I think my model solves
these issues once and for all. See it at MODEL .
But, getting back to the subject, GGR even published in his book the entire
chronology of my process – which I had never seen myself – but he would not
need to touch on this already resolved subject if he was only concerned with the Sítio.
16. Conclusion.
GGR sees nothing positive in the transformation that the Sítio had to
undergo by no longer being a private property and becoming a place of public
visitation that is on the eve of becoming a Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Instead, only angry, dishonest and poorly worded criticism.
From what he writes, we discovered that he does not know the Sítio, does
not understand what Roberto did and does not even know what landscape design
is.
We conclude that, contrary to the impression he wants to produce, GGR is
not a defender of the Sítio, but someone who wants to embellish himself above any
scruples.
Much more could be said, but within the powers of a blog in a time of
pandemia, I hope GGR is sufficiently unmasked.
P.S.
3- OSCILAÇÃO
Foi necessária também a adição de espaçadores entre as peças, já que tampouco haviam pensado na enorme oscilação lateral que solucionamos cruzando os cabos de aço que perpassam todas as peças.
