Seeing that it's just outside of Rio it's hard NOT to recommended going to see but frankly I am disappointed in the site not purely because it's rather mediocre but as a WHS there is no way it qualifies as one. It is instead an excuse to be inscribed as a homage to Burle Marx, who in my opinion broke several (not back in the days when he did it?) importing biological materials laws/guidelines and planted it all in his estate. Speaking of estate, he's a rich fellow and the huge divide between classes in Brazil makes this another questionable point: why we want to honor a person who imported luxurious art and plants to his estate while the rest of the country is struggling. I don't find him honorable and the estate itself is a poor example of his work.

Let's start from the top. First they have recently (start of 2022) begun a new online appointment system. Slots are limited with only a few guided tours per day and most of them are in Portuguese. The staff was super friendly when I got in touch with them while it was still closed for Covid-19 quarantine and announced when it was ready with their new appointment system. The English of the one particular staff (forgot his name, sorry) was particular good in both written and later in spoken during the tour.

You can stay in several lodges around the area but I would say the prices are a little more than you should pay for, unless I am missing something about them being in a more "green" environment to make this worth it, and in the end you still need to get there by car because the entry is away from these lodgings. I personally recommend either staying in western Rio itself or like me coming from the West just stay in Pedra de Guaratiba which has cheap lodgings, beach, food, safe, easy.

When you arriving in the morning you need to show your appointment to the security who have a list of expected visitors. It's quite strict but once they clear you it's time to drive further in to a small parking lot. That might also be why it's sort of strict because there are limited spaces and they don't want random people showing up to look at the museum part and fill up the driveways. The guide will greet you and usually I expect it would start on time but we were expected three more people so he showed me the introductory room (+restroom) to pass the time. After 10 minutes we gave up on them as accoring to the guide "good weather on Sunday in May means people would rather go to the beach" and the guest names were local so maybe they picked the wrong language anyway. Anyhow, the your finally started. The intro btw gives you a nice background on Burle Marx and the facilities, where he designed landscapes and other important things from his life.

The tour has several parts. First the greenhouses which are so-so, then the slope up which is probably the main draw because it's beautiful, has the main house in view with the heavy forest behind it and you can see the scenery changing as you go up. At this point I felt the place was nice because of nature and the beautiful day made it all enjoyable. Then when you get to the house the negative things started to creep up. For one, strange art, yeah to each of their own but I find that it's not why the place should be special and once again this feels rather elitist buying African totems to show off back home. It would get worse as you go inside the house, not because the house is bad but I just feel I dislike Burle Marx. There is a short clip of him playing piano (or was it singing to piano) and the kind of person he was just doesn't seem my type of guy I want to inscribe as world heritage. He designed beautiful landscapes and that's all fine, but we hardly see it here. The slope up to to the house is the main attraction for world heritage, the fountain over the roof is the second and there are some small paths if you decided to descend that way (people with bad legs are not recommended to take it although I think it's fine for most visitors unless you are handicapped).

Before the estate was huge but was mainly protected forest which is nice but once again not world heritage criteria, nowadays it doesn't go far beyond the houses and one isn't allowed into that area anyway. Before you finish the tour you go to another "elitist" summer house which has some interested design choices but nothing that caught my eyes to say I would compare it to someone like Corbusier. 

Think of the botanical gardens at Padua University and notice how it's rather poor for a botanical garden but still important because it was the first one to start a trend, that's pretty much all there is to it. Would rather have seen a series of his work inscribed and then MAYBE it could include his home as well but by itself that's just wrong.