Orchid Show’s Cuban-born Designer Recalls Native Influences

Posted in Exhibitions, People, The Orchid Show on March 4 2010, by Plant Talk

Jorge Sánchez, president and co-founder of the landscape architecture firm Sánchez & Maddux in Palm Beach, Florida, designed this year’s Orchid Show.

For Sánchez & Maddux to be awarded the opportunity to design The Orchid Show: Cuba in Flower was, indeed, a feather in our cap. The fact that the show is centered on Cuba made it very personal for me, for it is where I was born and grew up until the ripe old age of 11½.

I’ve often said we are all born with a talent. The key is realizing that talent. I don’t mean that one has to be the best in the world at whatever it may be, but that one has a gift for something. For me that gift is designing landscapes. I have enjoyed plants, history, and architecture as far back as I can remember, and my field of work encompasses all of these things. This has also given me a very good visual memory. And so here I take you back to my childhood and the influences of my native Cuba that have helped to shape elements of this year’s Orchid Show.

I must have been 10 years old when my two maternal uncles purchased a ranch in the province of Pinar del Rio, about 55 miles from Havana, where we lived. One day, while staying with one of my grandmothers (which my siblings and I did whenever my parents were away traveling) we went for a picnic at the ranch, Las Maravillas de Roja, rather a long name for a ranch.

The drive to the ranch was special—my father flew his own plane, so family car trips were rare. We went along the western seacoast from Havana. What a magnificent drive it was. Beautiful coves, seashore, and mountains beyond. We drove into the mountains, through some switchbacks, to an area called Soroa.

There we stopped to visit a friend of the family, a gentleman who collected orchids as a hobby. From the road we could see saltos (small waterfalls) with lots of gushing water and lots of ferns and begonias. The house—somewhat of a cross between a country house and one found on a finca (farm)— was off the little road, up a winding drive. It was perched atop the cloud forest, with mountaintop to mountaintop seen in the distance, in every direction.

The combinations of structures in every shade of green—bamboo forests, royal palms, huge trees—were, to me, like a fantasy. The semi-vertical sides of the garden were covered in tropical begonias, large rocks, ground orchids, and small lawns. The house itself was built of native stone walls, wood verandas, and Cuban tile roof. The not-quite-wraparound verandas were covered with orchids in bloom. Hummingbirds darted every which way, with that odd sound they make. Memorable? More like magical.

The sights and sounds have been embedded in my mind for decades, helping me develop a re-creation of the Soroa Orchidarium for The Orchid Show. The influences of the iconic Havana replicas in The Orchid Show have their stories as well.

Early on, after the discovery of America, Havana became the center of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. By royal decree, all ships coming to or leaving from Spain’s colonies had to do so from the port of Havana. This made the city look like honey to pirates sanctioned from competing crowns. After a major raid, the Spanish Crown ordered the construction of the first permanent fortification there, the Castillo de la Real Fuerza. This fortress has a turret topped with a wind vane of a female figure called La Giraldilla.

La Giraldilla became a symbol for the city of Havana. The coquettish nature of the sculpture is unique for the 16th century. There are those who say that the model for it was a gal very popular with the sailors, who traded her secrets for cash. Well, this is not unheard of. A replica of La Giraldilla and the fortress tower it sits atop greet visitors in the Palm Dome of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. How best to start a tour of The Orchid Show: Cuba in Flower?

Get Your Tickets