Tropical Architecture

The sad end of Policarpo Quaresma, by Lima Barreto (1911), is a classic of Brasilian literature. The novel’s central character, Policarpo, is a book worm and passionate nationalist who is perplexed and angry at the Brasilian obsession with European culture. A fighter, undeterred by impossible odds, a little like a Brasilian Don Quixote, he is particularly irritated by the inability of the Portuguese language to capture the exuberant diversity of Brasilian flora and fauna. He launches a campaign to consecrate the indigenous Tupi as the national language of Brasil, for the simple reason that Tupi has names for the myriad types of native flowers, plants and trees. Their clumsy translation into Latin-Portuguese is a manifest absurdity and prompts him to lobby the government. He is met with ridicule, shunned by polite society, and retreats first to an asylum and then to a small farm where he embarks on his next vain quest, to reform agriculture. I am not a botanist, and I have so far avoided posting blogs about exotic plants, most of which are probably familiar anyway since they were cloned by Europeans and replanted in Botanic gardens. However, to see them in all of their glory in a natural setting is something else. These are three of my favourites which draw out the architect in me; structure, geometry, and formal elegance.