Isabela Ono

Isabela Ono is Founder and Executive Director of the Burle Marx Institute. She is a landscape architect with a master’s degree in urbanism. Isabela has more than 25 years of professional experience in the landscape design area, working directly with Haruyoshi Ono, her father, Roberto Burle Marx's creative partner for almost 30 years. Since the beginning of her career, she worked in the development of a multitude of landscape projects, and in parallel worked in the archive, supporting academic researchers and co-curated content for exhibitions and publications on the Burle Marx’s legacy, being an expert on the subject. She has recently curated two exhibitions in Brazil (2021 and 2023). Isabela inherited her father’s passion for the landscape profession and belief in the relevance of preserving the Burle Marx landscape collective collection through making them accessible globally, opening possibilities to think of new meanings from this legacy. Isabela believes in the collection and their concepts and narratives to spread the philosophy on the well-being of individuals – by incorporating nature and artistry – to create the possibility of the ‘utopian urban environment’ and inspiring new, greener and healthier visions of the future of the cities.