Silent Poetry - experiencing Luis Barragán’s emotional architecture

Silent Poetry experiencing Luis Barragán’s emotional architecture

Politecnico di Milano Scuola di Architettura, Urbanistica, Ingegneria delle Costruzioni MSc in Architecture of Interiors

History and Theory of Architecture Academic Year: 2016 / 2017

Theme: Experience

Professor: IrĂŠnĂŠe Scalbert Tutors: Giulia Ricci, Guido Tesio

Alice Camilla Mariani - 862356

Silent Poetry experiencing Luis Barragán’s emotional architecture

During the XX century, the architectural world was strongly influenced by a series of revolutionary events. We could consider these as the starting point for the creation of the Modern Movement. Made of spontaneity and crudity, this era is strongly distant from the aesthetic and harmonious canons; people like Le Corbusier, Reyner Banham, Alison and Peter Smithson, Team Ten (born in 1953 and composed by the Smithson, Aldo Van Eyck, Jacob Bakema, Georges Candilis, Shadrach Woods, Giancarlo De Carlo) strongly mark this architectural period.

The work of Luis Ramiro Barragán Morfín (1902-88) takes place in Mexico, distant from the European so called “Agitated Movements”. Son of a rich landowner, Barragán, since his early childhood, lived in close contact with the Mexican council houses. In 1923 he graduated in basic engineering; then he decided to attend many complementary courses to achieve his degree in architecture, even if he never managed to complete the academic career.

Gonzales Gortazar, Tres Arquitectos Mexicanos (entre 1928 y 1936), in México en El Arte 4, March 1984, 46-56.

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Marco Biraghi, Storia dell’architettura contemporanea. Vol. 2: 1945-2008, 121-141. Einaudi, 2008.

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Louise Noelle, Luis Barragán: dilatazione emotiva degli spazi. Testo & Immagine, 1997

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We know that the European scenario is crucial, but why do we need to mention it? The journey in Paris, Spain, Italy, Greece and America that Barragán started in 1925 left a deep mark in his earliest works. In an interview with Gonzáles Gortazár, Barragán confessed “I am influenced by everything I see”.1 As a matter of fact, Paris at the time was the inimitable capital of culture; he visited the “Exposition International des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes” where he got in touch especially with the work of Le Corbusier, Frederich Kiesler and Mel’nikov, with the Espirit Nouveau, the Neoplastic and the Constructivism. The memory and the past had a very important role in his creative expression. In particular, the first production of Barragán reflected the ideals which were assimilated during the European journey. Furthermore the revolutionary context in Mexico helped the spread of the lessons of Le Corbusier in the works of many of the young Mexican architects; a technical architecture2. Cité dans l’espace, the Austrian pavillion designed by Frederich Kiesler, had a great effect on the Mexican architects’ works. The influence of the Austrian architect was important not only for the use of the primary and abstract colours but also for his ideal of endless, “una architettura senza fine”3, the idea of an architectural continuum that will be present in the last works of Luis Barragán as well. Finally, Ferdinand Bach’s gardens had an essential role; during the Acceptance Speech of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Barrágan mentioned Ferdinand Bac “…and it is to him that I am indebted for my longing to create a perfect garden.”

Everything said before is fundamental to understand the architecture of Luis Barragán. At the very beginning, he worked for three years in Guadalajara, his hometown, where his production followed the local roots. His desire to get an economical rise brought him move to Mexico City where a first rational phase (the so-called “corbu-inspired”), combined with a commercial soul, took place.

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Luis Barragรกn.

1. House of the Mexican architect Luis Barragรกn.

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Pallasmaa in “Six themes for the next millenium” suggested six themes for the re-enchantment of architecture at the turn of the millennium: they are: slowness, plasticity, sensuousness, authenticity, idealisation and silence.

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Juhani Pallasmaa, “Space, place and atmosphere. Emotion and peripherical perception in architectural experience,” Lebenswelt 4 (2014): 230-245.

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Robert McCarter, Juhani Pallasmaa, Understanding Architecture: a Primer on Architecture as Experience (Phaidon, 2012) 185-213.

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Finally, around the late 40s, the work of Luis Barragán beginned to have an intrinsic essence; the Mexican architect looked for a personal expressive form in a new architectural language. “Creo en una arquitectura emocional.

Es muy importante para la especie humana que la arquitectura pueda conmover por su belleza. Si existen distintas soluciones técnicas igualmente válidas para un problema, la que ofrece al usuario un mensaje de belleza y emoción, esa es arquitectura.” (I believe in an emotional architecture. It is very important for humankind that architecture should move by its beauty; if there are many equally valid technical solutions to a problem the one which offers the user a message of beauty and emotion, that one is architecture). He devoted himself to the architecture as a sublime act of poetic imagination and he tried to create a kind of architecture which involves completely its visitors, both bodily and mentally, through a kine-aesthetic experience that re-awakens all the senses. This embodied experience evokes several emotions with the use of the faculties of perception and imagination; many artistic minds such as Juhani Pallasmaa and Pether Zumthor, to mention a few examples, theorised and analysed in depth these phenomena through the production of books and articles. In particular, Luis Barragán’s ideals were founded on a canon of beauty in a silent and enchanted atmosphere.

Max Picard in The World of Silence wrote “Poetry grows out of silence and thrusts for silence”; a great architecture recalls silence and this kind of poetic experience turns the attention into our own existence. Experiencing a building is not only a matter of looking at its spaces, forms and surfaces – it is also a matter of listening to its characteristic silence4; in this way all the things that surrounded us are filtered and our minds are concentrated to grasp the architecture’s authentic poetic. John Cage, American composer, in 1947 produced 4’33’’; for him “the sound experience which I prefer to all others, is the experience of silence”. Perceived as four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence, 4’33’’ is considered as the most important composition in John Cage’s career: it consisted in sounds emanated by the environment in which it is performed. Our souls are in a continuous relation with the box in which we are contained and emotions are the interaction between the human organism and the environment; “as we enter a space, a space enter us”.5 The Chapel and Convent for the Capucinas Sacramentarias del Purísmo Corazón de María (Mexico City - Tlalpan, 1952-1959) is a “space made of silence and light”.6 Silence “resounds” in this place of spiritual life and the natural light is filtered and transformed to create a divine and mystic atmosphere. The embodied experience of this place evocated a sense of spirituality given by the glowing light and the silence. Outside, the building presented a simple white façade, similar to the surrounding ones. Inside, the authentic architecture of Luis Barragán has been realized: the use of tactile materials and intense colours, the endless and continuous spaces and the dialogue between the architecture and the nature created a scenography, a place where emotions and silence represent the mere essence of the architectural experience. In fact, the architect, like in the great medieval convents, avoided symmetry in search of emotional spaces marked and amplified by sunlight. Barragán deeply believed in the Catholic Church and in his Acceptance Speech mentioned Religion, Myth and Faith as other ideals that were always present in his architecture. Moreover, the peace and the wellbeing that are experimented in cloisters, solitary courts and ancient cathedral left an indelible footprint in the soul of the architect: these themes became essential points of his poetic indeed.

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Mystic intimacy.

2. The Chapel and Convent for the Capucinas Sacramentarias del Purísmo Corazón de María.

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Water and light were considered the protagonists of the project and they match with the geometric simplicity of the architectural elements. Arches, fountains and sculptures become emblematic key points: they create public spaces with a deep emotional impact. Coloured planes and volumes enhance the emotionality that pervade the architectural works of this last period of production which is marked by metaphysics influences as well.

Luis Barragán, Ceremony Acceptance Speech, The Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1980.

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Wim H. J. van den Bergh, Luis Barragán, Kim Zwarts, Luis Barragán : the eye embodied. Maastricht: Pale Pink Publishers, 2006.

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John Lobell, Louis I. Kahn, Between silence and light: spirit in the Architecture of Louis I. Kahn. Shambhala, 2000

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Two examples of the wise use of the water are Los Clubes (Mexico City,19611972) and the House for Francisco Gilardi Rivera (Mexico City, 1975-1977).

In the first project, Luis Barragán designed a place provided with a specific equipment for thoroughbred; the horseback riding is practised by all the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. The Fuente de los Amantes (the Fountain of the lovers) has an intrinsic importance in this project. The coloured walls of the architectural complex are reflected in the water; they create a surreal effect and everything is surrounded by a silent atmosphere. In this fountain “silence sings”7 and the peculiar atmosphere that characterize this place evocate a sense of peace and joy.

In the case of Gilardi Home (built around an existent Jacaranda tree), the pool has been designed in a more intimate way. The Fuente de los Amantes is the core of a public space; whereas in Gilardi Home the pool is collocated inside the house, annexed to the dining room. Reached passing through a yellow painted corridor characterized by slit windows, the pool is located at the end of a metaphysics and scenographic walk; this is a place dominated by the careful use of the primary colours and the wise control of the light.

These elements invade the atmosphere and expand the space, they compose a restless sequence with neoplastic fragments. This is an architecture made of sequences, a clear quote of the Frederich Kiesler’s pavilion.

Barragan’s architectural works seem to be purely visual and made for a photographic eye; famous photographer such as René Burri (1933-2014), Armando Salas Portugal (1916-1995) and Kim Zwarts (1955) captured the real atmosphere, the silent joy and serenity8 and the poetic of the place. Both the photographic and architectural visions search a sense of contemplation; the result is an abstract composition with a strong materialistic consistency.

Their works are in perfect harmony with the poetry of the Mexican architect.

Luis Barragán, during his life, was surrounded by many artistic minds; Louis Isadore Kahn (1901-1974) was another noteworthy personality that got in touch with the Mexican architect. Kahn believed in architecture as a way of expression, in its peculiar atmosphere. Elements like silence, light, spirit, joy and beauty left a deep mark in his production: “Inspiration is the feeling of beginning at the threshold where Silence and Light meet. Silence, the unmeasurable, desire to be, desire to express, the source of new need, meets Light, the measurable, giver of all presence, by will, by law, the measure of things already made...”.9 The landscape and architectural projects designed

by Barragán moved Kahn since the very beginning; in fact, Barragán and Le Corbusier were the only contemporary architects that were cited by the American architect during his conferences. In 1966, Louis I. Kahn was working on the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (La Jolla, 1959-1965) directed and funded by the inventor of the polio vaccine in La Jolla, California; one year before he had the opportunity to visit Mexico City and the architectural works of Barragán; he was really impressed by the Jardines del Pedregal

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The voice of the water.

3. Fuente de los Amantes - Los Clubes.

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Wim H. J. van den Bergh, Luis Barragán, Kim Zwarts, Luis Barragán : the eye embodied. Maastricht: Pale Pink Publishers, 2006.

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Lorenzo Antonio Amado, “Kahn y Barragán: Convergencias en la plaza del Instituto Salk”.

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Barragán, in a conversation with Kahn, said: “If you make this a plaza, you will gain a facade, a facade to the sky.” Lorenzo Antonio Amado, “Kahn y Barragán: Convergencias en la plaza del Instituto Salk”.

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Many architectural works are produced under the consideration of only one (of five) sense: the sight. Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin.

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Peter Zumthor, Atmospheres: architectural environments – surrounding objects.

Birkhäuser Verlag, 2006 14

Luis Barragán, Ceremony Acceptance Speech, The Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1980.

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(Mexico City, 1945-1952). For this reason, Kahn identified Barragán as a master of the most emotional landscape and he invited the Mexican architect to collaborate for the project of the plaza of the Salk Institute. Despite Kahn asked Barragán to come to La Jolla and help him in the choice of the planting for the garden, the final proposal designed by Barragán consisted in an empty plaza deprived of every kind of useless element but fulfilled with an emotional meaning. “I would not put a tree or a blade of grass in this space.

This should be a plaza of stone, not a garden”10 Barragán said as he looked across the space and towards the sea. Here the great influence of the Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico on Barragán’s architecture is clear: “I found in him the magic that I always searched for. When I saw his paintings, I thought: this is what I can do with landscape architecture”.11 Comparing Piazza d’Italia, the well-known oil painting by Giorgio de Chirico, to the court of the Salk Institute, it is possible to catch the similarity: a central empty space is defined by two symmetrical constructions that frame the landscape. The eco of the profound silence resounded in the central court paved with travertine; the human being, while experiencing this plaza, lived a unique journey full of sensations and emotions. Once again, water has been used as a poetic tool: it emerges from the cubic fountain near the entry, running down the entire plaza. The line drawn by the water divides the stone paving in two; finally, the water reached a lowered basin which overlooks the ocean. Experiencing the court is completely breath-taking: it changes through the day and the seasons because the different elements of the plaza produce a constant play of light and shadows. It is a “façade to the sky”12, a timeless place where the profoundest experience of the silence evocated our deepest concentration.

In conclusion, in an era marked by a dominance of the visual realm13, Barragán founded his work in a production of an “arquitectura emocional”, an architecture not only made of emotions but also made of cinematographic sequences, endless spaces, gaudy colours, spiritual light and sublime silence.

Although the Mexican architect produced a real work of art of seeing, dominated by beauty and proportions, his architectural production has a soul.

When we visit a house, a garden, a plaza designed by Luis Barragán, we live an embodied experience: our souls hear the silence, feel the poetry and the magic that characterize these places. We are in a continuous interaction with the space that surrounds us and stimulates our senses and our feelings.

Architecture is a matter of emotions, enchanted atmospheres and moods: “quality architecture to me is when a building manages to move me”.14 Sometimes, the sound (or the absence of sound) of a space is something hidden, ignored; but silence enhances the architectural atmosphere and it impresses our feels, our moods. Silence is not only absence of sound, “volume zero”; silence evokes several emotions and a sense of nostalgia and melancholy, of concentration and meditation. Silence completes the architectural experience. Barragán, in the act of designing and building an architecture, actually “wrote a poem”; silence is the main element which helps us to lose ourselves while we are experiencing this kind of emotional architecture. In his poetic works, Luis Barragán has always endeavoured to allow for the “interior placid murmur of silence”.15

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Endless space.

4. House for Francisco Gilardi Rivera.

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“I take this occasion to present some impressions and recollections that, to some extent, sum up the ideology behind my work. In this regard, Mr. Jay Pritzker stated in an announcement to the press with excessive generosity what I consider essential to that ideology: that I had been chosen as the recipient of this prize for having devoted myself to architecture “as a sublime act of poetic imagination.” Consequently, I am only a symbol for all those who have been touched by Beauty. It is alarming that publications devoted to architecture have banished from their pages the words Beauty, Inspiration, Magic, Spellbound, Enchantment, as well as the concepts of Serenity, Silence, Intimacy and Amazement All these have nestled in my soul, and though I am fully aware that I have not done them complete justice in my work, they have never ceased to be my guiding lights.”

Luis Barragán, Ceremony Acceptance Speech, The Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1980.

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Metaphysical court.

5. Court of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

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Extended Bibligraphy - Wim H. J. van den Bergh, Luis Barragán, Kim Zwarts, Luis Barragán : the eye embodied. Maastricht: Pale Pink Publishers, 2006.

- Robert McCarter, Juhani Pallasmaa, Understanding Architecture: a Primer on Architecture as Experience (Phaidon, 2012) 185-213.

- John Lobell, Louis I. Kahn, Between silence and light: spirit in the Architecture of Louis I. Kahn. Shambhala, 2000.

- Louise Noelle, Luis Barragán: dilatazione emotiva degli spazi. Testo & Immagine, 1997.

- Peter Zumthor, Atmospheres: architectural environments – surrounding objects. Birkhäuser Verlag, 2006.

- Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. John Wiley and Sons, 2005.

- Steen Eiler Rasmussen, “Hearing Architecture.” In Experiencing Architecture, edited by Steen Eiler Rasmussen, 22-31. Mit Press, 1964.

- Pallasmaa, Juhani. “Space, Place, Memory, and Imagination: The Temporal Dimension of Existential Space.” In Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and Landscape, edited by Marc Treib, 189-200. Routledge, 2009.

- Marco Biraghi, Storia dell’architettura contemporanea. Vol. 2: 1945-2008, 121-141. Einaudi, 2008.

- Juhani Pallasmaa, “Space, place and atmosphere. Emotion and peripherical perception in architectural experience”, Lebenswelt 4 (2014): 230-245.

- Juhani Pallasmaa, “Six themes for the next millenium.” The Architectural Review (July 1994): 74-79.

- Lorenzo Antonio Amado, “Kahn y Barragán: Convergencias en la plaza del Instituto Salk,” EGA: revista de expresión gráfica arquitectónica 19, (2012): 126-135.

- Luis Barragán, Ceremony Acceptance Speech, The Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1980.

- Nicolai Bo Andersen, “Consciously unconscious – researching, teaching and practising transformation architecture” (paper session presented at the International Workshop: jornadas científicas, investigar los procesos de diseño: etnografías y análisis de dialogías sociales, UPC - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, May 30, 2013).

- Gordon A. Nicholson, “Silent Space” (paper presented at the conference: 70 Architects, Reconciling Poetics and Ethics in Architecture, McGill University, Montréal, Canada, September 13 -15, 2007) Images Credits Cover Photo: Renè Burri/Magnum Photos, Cuadra San Cristóbal - Los Clubes.

1.: Renè Burri/Magnum Photos, House of the Mexican architect Luis Barragán.

2. : Renè Burri/Magnum Photos, The Chapel and Convent for the Capucinas Sacramentarias del Purísmo Corazón de María.

3. : Renè Burri/Magnum Photos, Fuente de los Amantes - Los Clubes.

4. : Kim Zwarts, House for Francisco Gilardi Rivera.

5. : Peter Aprahamian, Court of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

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