The park is an astonishing place, like nothing I have known before. The enveloping lushness of the plants and trees in their complex contrasts of shapes and rainbows of greens and browns punctuated by the bright intensity of flowers created a sense entirely outside any previous experience for me—outside of time, unmoored from any other place on Earth.

One can only tour there, with a guide—it is a museum in its way, with friendly security guides and no opportunity to wander, though I often paused in wonder, letting the group move further on until it was time to catch up again. Priscila and I agreed that we would stay there forever if we could. I felt a sense of loss when we got back in the car to head back into the city.

What struck me most—what strikes me the most now, in reflection—is how personal and how committed Marx’s project was. Priscila articulated this for me while we were sitting in a quiet, meditative space he had created with water dripping down from the roof of our shelter into the small pond before us: Ele estava trabalhando pela eternade. He was working for eternity.

The place was entirely personal. At the center of the lower part of the garden sits Marx’s house, constructed around a grand sala de jantar, or dining room, with a long broad table whose top is a work of abstract art made by Marx himself. Marx had been an aspiring painter before he shifted his attention to landscapes, and his home is filled with his collection of 20th century art, much of it Brazilian and with some of his own works on display. He also collected indigenous ceramics, and the collection adorns several rooms of the house. Everywhere one looks one sees the imprint of his personal taste—the art, the interior design, the flow of the landscape and the intentionality of the plantings work together to express the man at the heart of the endeavor.

Marx loved music—he said “for me, music has always been pretty much the reason for my existence”—and there is a sala da musica next to the dining room where guests could repair after dining. The piano of Marx’s mother fills part of the room—they were extremely close, and Marx never married, though he had a life-long friendship with his mentor, the architect and urban planner Lucio Costa. Costa developed the master plan for Brazil’s capitol Brasilia, which was built between 1956 and 1960, and Marx was a collaborator, designing three major gardens in the new city. Standing in the music room was like being transported in time to a different era, when art and music were central to life in a way they no longer seem to be.

Sitio Roberto Burle Marx is so personal that one might suspect some element of hagiography in the design of the museum, but that is far from the case. More powerful than anything, for me at least, was a sense of humility, even self-effacement. There is a small room in a corner of the Marx’s house—maybe a guest bedroom—that houses some of his personal effects in cabinets with glass fronts.