Perhaps the most celebrated feature of Rio de Janeiro's legendary Copacabana Beach is its elegant mosaic pavements. During the construction and urbanization of Avenida Atlântica (1905-06), along Copacabana's curved, sandy beach, Mayor Francisco Pereira Passos imported both skilled craftsmen and stone from Portugal to pave the oceanfront promenade. The Portuguese artisans followed patterns typical of the distinctive paving of Portuguese walkways (calçada à portuguesa), entirely covered in alternating black-and-white waves composed of small stones cut and laid by hand. In his project for the renovation and extension of the pavements of Avenida Atlântica (Calçadão de Copacabana, 1969-72), Burle Marx retained the original pattern on the beachfront pavement - only accentuating the curves - preserving the memory of the colonial metropolis.(5) For the new pavements on the opposite side of the seafront and on the islands at the centre of the avenue, however, he used the same black and white stones combined with a red one to compose a magnificent four-kilometre-long abstract mosaic that pays tribute to the colonial artisan tradition - the old motif at times reappears in the form of fragmentary quotations - and imaginatively re-invents. Burle Marx's juxtaposition of the old and new mosaic pavements along Avenida Atlântica constitutes one of the most eloquent expressions of his lifelong ambition to elevate landscape design to the level of the fine arts.from here
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- bill 11-09-2014 12:36 pm