ARCHITECT’S HOME A WORK OF ART
Casa Luis Barragan features magical spaces where visitors can admire modernist work
MEXICO CITY In a working-class neighbourhood of Mexico City, two concrete buildings hidden near the end of a cul-de-sac draw visitors from around the world.
This is the home and studio of Luis Barragan, one of Mexico’s most influential architects, who lived and worked here for four decades. The complex, called Casa Luis Barragan, features a clean, minimalist style, accented by Mexican elements, with high walls, natural light and splashes of colour creating magical spaces.
Built in 1948, it became a museum after Barragan’s death in 1988 and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2004. Tour reservations for the complex must be made several weeks in advance. Most tours are in Spanish but there are some in English. Those who arrive without reservations are sent away.
Barragan was a modernist who blended the functionalism of Le Corbusier with designs inspired by Mexican traditions and by his travels to places like Morocco. He used natural light to create “transition spaces” separating outside from inside, evoking the serenity of a Mexican courtyard. But he also used bright colours like sunny yellow and an electric pink called rosa Mexicana.
Barragan was a bachelor and died in the house at age 86. The home and studio are owned by the government of his native Jalisco state and a foundation called the Fundacion de Arquitectura Tapatia Luis Barragan. But his professional archive — plans, photos, models — was purchased by a Swiss furniture company and is housed in Europe by another foundation named for Barragan. Access to that archive has been severely restricted by its owners, which has limited what
museums and scholars can do to promote Barragan’s legacy. In 2015, a conceptual artist had some of Barragan’s cremated remains dug up and made into a diamond ring. She offered the ring in exchange for access to the archives to make a point about corporate ownership of art.
The casa is virtually hidden by the high walls that surround it. Its lush, green interior garden can be viewed through large windows, bringing a feeling of nature indoors. Known in large part as a landscape architect, Barragan was especially influential in his own country, planning Mexico City’s Jardines del Pedregal project, which transformed an expanse of lava rock into a park and residential area. He also designed the five colourful towers of the Ciudad Satelite development on Mexico City’s outskirts and reconstructed the Chapel and Convent of the Capuchinas Sacramentarias in the capital’s southern zone of Tlapan.