Casa Estudio Luis Barragán

CASA ESTUDIO LUIS BARRAGÁN

Carlos Pérez‐Gavilán Robert Universidad de Navarra – MDA – 03 2010

Luis Barragán was born in the state of Jalisco, Mexico in 1902. His childhood was lived in alternation between the capital, Guadalajara and the family´s ranch, in Mazamitla which had earths in “the most interesting of reds”. 1 Both places played a significant part in the shaping of the architect´s sensibility. One exposed him to multi‐coloured popular architecture traditionally found in small towns in rural Mexico. As for the city, Barragán said it taught him to love a reserved community respectful of privacy, full of an architecture of interiors which reflected it. 2 After obtaining his engineering degree in 1923, he travelled to Europe for two years during which time he visited France and Spain. In France, he discovered the paintings of Ferdinand Bac which would have a profound influence on him and of which Barragán says they awakened his love for garden design3. His admiration for Bac’s work lasted for the whole of his career and the two stayed in touch with each other, interchanging letters, photographs and thoughts.4 The Alhambra also played a critical part in his formation. The architect said he never forgot the feeling of walking inside a narrow tunnel in which he was barely able to stand and then suddenly being mesmerized by the beauty of the Patio de los Arrayanes, the central courtyard in the main building of the complex. “In my life I’ve always needed contrasts – arriving from the small to the big”5.

His work is certainly an assertion of that search.

He was also was especially struck by the gardens of the Generalife6:

The beauty of Islamic architecture resides in the fact that opposites touch each other: the mystery of religion and the magic of sensuality, of eroticism.7 Upon his return to Mexico, Barragán designed some small houses and did some remodeling projects in Guadalajara. He later moved to Mexico City where he worked in bigger projects and had the chance to meet people who would greatly influence his work. Such was the case with Chucho Reyes with whom Barragán developed a close friendship. Not only did Reyes’s paintings play a critical part in the architect’s use of colour, he was often present as an aid during Barragán’s colour decision process. After a project had been completed, they would develop a colour scheme within a certain palette they both thought appropriate and then they would paint large cardboards with the selected tones and place them on the white wall to see which worked best. In 1976 when asked by an interviewer who he would he call his greatest mentor, Barragán answered that undoubtedly Chucho Reyes who “best made us comprehend Mexican colour”8. It is noteworthy to mention that the he does not cite any architect as his mentor, but a painter. It is therefore not coincidental that his work prior to his transfer to Mexico City lacked colour.

1

(Riggen, 2000) p. 103; Barragán description of Mazamitla.

2

(Riggen, 2000) p. 69

3

(Burri, 2000) p. 96

4

(Ruiz Barbarín, 2008)

5

6

(Riggen, 2000)

(Ruiz Barbarín, 2008)

7

Barragán when asked his opinión about the Alhambra. (Riggen, 2000)

8

Interview by Elena Poniatowska published in Novedades th th newspaper (Mexico City, November 28 and 29 and December nd th th 2 , 4 and 5 )

one of those gardens (…). Barragán builds the first house for himself.9

His House The house’s façade shows no setbacks and it is composed of one single plain, following the line of its neighbours. Only the library´s window breaks the flatness by extruding a few centimeters out. Both programmes, house and workshop, are undifferentiated except for the change in height of the wall facing the street.

Said wall is left unpainted and the naturally rugged appearance of the mortar cover left almost unfinished. The building lies unpretentious, fading into the working class neighbourhood that was, and still is, Tacubaya.

“Rooster” by Chucho Reyes. Image courtesy of www.jornada.unam.mx

In 1940 Barragán acquires a plot of land in Tacubaya, a neighbourhood in the central zone of Mexico City where he develops three different houses. One of those houses was intended for his own private residence and atelier and it was also the first project in which he had complete liberty to do as he felt.

Consequently it is there where his vision of architecture, his ideals and influences are manifested. (…) from 1940 onwards, he begins to modify the lots and to materialize patiently the memory of his childhood (…) and of Les Colombières (…).

He begins in those gardens, with deliberation, the sequence of spaces, fountains, voids, sculptures, sensations that would constitute the ideal field for meditation and solitude. A controlled an serene environment, rustic and immaculate at the same time, and intimate. In

The magnificence of the house goes unnoticed from the street. Photo courtesy of Barragán House.

Apart from this desire for anonymity in regard with its humble surroundings, the façade´s extreme austere nature was perhaps a subtle gesture on Barragán’s part announcing that dichotomy which struck him at the Alhambra.

9

(Ruiz Barbarín, 2008), quoting José María Buendía, Juan Palomar and Guillermo Eguiarte in “Luis Barragán”.

The duality of the monastical (façade) covering a rich and sensual interior – a phenomenon found inside the house as well and a metaphor, maybe, of the architect´s life. The only colours present on the outside are the yellow painted metal doors of the garage and the main entrance. Looking up, and pulling back a few steps, we catch a glimpse of the red and white volumes framing the terrace on the top floor. A whisper of what lies ahead.

The entrance hall preceding the main vestibule is a slim corridor in a very dim lighting. It acts as a sort of decompression tunnel in which the visitor is allowed to readjust its senses for the emotional experience the insides are about to offer. The house’s main materials, stone, concrete and wood are presented for the first time. The space also mimics the narrow alleys in Latin American towns which Barragán found so fascinating. “I guess that without those walls [enclosing the confined streets], the appeal to culminate in the plazas that represent the heart of the city would cease to be”.

The main vestibule is precisely that – the heart of the house. A nod of a plaza. Eventhough the whole of the space lies indoors and its dimensions are small in comparison to the rest of the house’s chambers, the lava stone flooring accentuates the feeling of being on a town’s square, or in a patio. Moreover, by the fact that the house’s terraces have the same material.

This stone was brought from the nearby site of Jardines del Pedregal, an urbanization project in which Barragán was working at the same time as his house and to which he felt dearly attached. He was mesmerized by the rock formations on the site.

The vestibule and Göeritz´s work. Image courtesy of www.casaluisbarragan.org

The stairs maximize the funnel‐like quality of the entrance hall. Image courtesy of Barragán House.

The room has no windows and it is completely enclosed by doors and walls. The light which delicately bathes the space comes from the staircase and is magnified by its reflection upon Mathias Goeritz’s golden abstract altarpiece hung on the stairs landing. The corner wall is

painted pink, as is the tiny chamber connecting the foyer with the kitchen and the breakfast room, also presenting pink walls. The chamber, painted in the same colour, appears not as a transitional space in itself, but as the wall’s insides.

The visual and spatial hermetism of the vestibule surrounded by doors of fairly the same size and with no apparent hierarchy, give the room a vortex‐like quality. The visitor finds himself in the centre of a project he hasn’t yet seen but promises a twirl of emotions. There is no clue as to what lies behind each of those doors and the anticipation only grows by the uncertainness. “I chase the causes of an emotion (…) of the enclosed spaces which lead us from one surprise to another, from one mystery to another ” 10, Barragán said. At this point of the visit, the house is begging to be discovered. One door at a time.

The foyer preceding the living room. Image courtesy of Barragán House.

Choosing the single door opposite to the stone stair, we access the living room and library area.

Not immediately, though. A small foyer greets us first. Consistent with Barragan’s search for surprise and mystery, the house slowly reveals itself in what has been described as an architectonic strip‐tease. 11 The wall dividing such space and the living room, has half the double height, allowing for the visitor a view of the wooden beams that support the slab but not of the living room itself. This resource used in the same manner as Adolf Loos did in Muller house, framing the views and retaining a sense of enclosure, giving rooms a theatrical quality.

Extract of Barragan’s answer when asked to explain his statement “I believe in emotional architecture”. (Burri, 2000)

Juan Palomar, as quoted by Antonio Ruiz Barbarín in Luis Barragán frente al Espejo: La otra mirada.

(Barcelona, 2008)

10

11

Even though the house is physically compartmented, there are stances such as in here where the heavy spatial division is relieved by permitting a visual continuity.

Resting on top of a cantilevered corner table, there is a stainless steel sphere. Barragán was deeply interested in painters such as De Chirico, and perhaps the sphere is a surrealist nod on his devotion to this movement. It is an object apparently placed out of context that has the means to integrate itself by reflecting, in its perfectly smooth surface, the textured walls, the rugged wood and the porous stone of its sorroundings. A sculptural oxymoron.

The last transitional resource before entering the living room is a folding screen blocking the view but not the light. Translucent but not transparent it is almost as the last stage of what I perceived as the chronological dematerialization of the wall. First there´s the floor‐to‐ceiling wall in the vestibule and the end part of the living room´s foyer, then the half wall and finally the screen.

Once out of the small preceding labyrinth, we arrive at the living room and are immediately struck by the famous garden window. But it isn´t really a window. The framing is carved into the wall and floor as to remain unnoticed, and it lies not on a wall opening, but in what appears as a passage way onto the next space. The garden receives such treatment. It is not the exterior, but another of the house’s chambers.

It is relevant to mention that this is the only window in the house with such a dimension.

None of the others come down all the way to the floor. Even those which face the garden (on both the ground floor and first level) come down to around a metre and a half above the floor. Barragán harshly criticized the modern use of large windows planes. He considered them an intolerable invasion on the home’s privacy. “Even in constructions where there are no neighbours but only nature all around, there’s a need for walls in order to create intimate atmosphere”.12

Space continuity at Café Vienna and Muller House by Adolf Loos.

Image courtesy of http://digitalstudio.gre.ac.uk

12

Barragan speaking about a time he visited a house in Connecticut made up of four glass walls with Japanese‐style curtains and a circular chamber in the

Living room. Image courtesy of Barragán House.

The library is separated from the living room by a series of half‐height walls and a screen which create a spiral spatial sequence culminating on top of the wooden staircase. These partitions weren’t always present. They were added some years after Barragán moved into his house, as one more of the interventions he felt were necessary after experiencing the spaces on a daily basis. The same was true with the colours on the walls. The house was originally all white, and after experiencing firsthand the incidence of light and the atmosphere sought after each room, he settled on the appropriate chromatic solution.

More than adding drama when approaching the space (as is the casa with the living room’s foyer, previously mentioned) these partitions are more of creating intimate spaces inside a larger one. I think it’s relevant to mention that Barragán lived by himself and he really had no need for crating private spaces within his house.

The partitioning of areas such as this one, goes on to show his desire in an almost obsessive manner, in creating what he felt was the perfect atmosphere. Undoubtedly it was small spaces where he felt most comfortable in.

Garden window. Image courtesy of Barragán House.

middle (Phillip Johnson’s Glass House, evidently). He tells how he and three other couples spent a wonderful time eating while looking at the beautiful scenery. After lunch he asked the ladies where they would like to sit down to rest, chat or read while digestion. Barragan said the three were unanimous in answering that the cylindrical chamber. (Riggen, 2000)

Library. Image courtesy of Barragán House.

The library’s main area is done in the same wooden floor as the rest of the ground floor. A natural, unaltered material, which in conjunction with the stone speaks about the roots of Mexican architecture and rejects where

possible the use of industrial materials such as glass iron and aluminum en vogue at the time.

extension. The door opens to Barragan’s most intimate and private space: the mezzanine.

Upon entering the room, our eyes are directed towards the big window which comes down at almost the same height as the half wall on the opposite side. For the first time in the tour around the house we are able to match the insides with the façade. But when we see the most prominent feature on the outside from within, we realize its dubious nature. Again, it is not a window per se, as the glazed glass impedes to look through, it is only a source of light. An ode to light, for that matter, if you consider its importance on the external look of the house. The window is also probably another nod by Barragán at Loos’s work and philosophy: “An educated man doesn’t look through the window; his window is an opaque glass; it is there but to give light, not to allow glancing”.13

Image courtesy of www.casaluisbarragan.org

Window extrusion on the façade. Image courtesy of www.casaluisbarragan.org

Opposite the window lie the stairs. They are completely done in cantilevered slabs of wood built into the wall and have no additional support structure. Their form is reminiscent of those in Ortega House, a preceding project by the architect, except those were done in concrete. By having matching wood type and the same width as the door at the top, they can be perceived as the door’s unfolding or

13

Le Corbusier in his book Urbanisme (Paris, 1925) p.

174, quoting Adolf Loos. Barragan owned the first edition of this book.

The mezzanine in penumbra. Image courtesy of Casa Luis Barragán

Stair at Casa Ortega (previous page) and Casa Luis Barragán (Images courtesy of La Revolución Callada and www. casaluisbarragan.org)

The mezzanine is a small space overlooking the library where the architect rested while reading or listening to music. Its interest lies in the window which regulated the amount of light able to come inside. A master in managing light, Barragán felt dim lighted spaces were optimal for rest. Like mammals seeking the penumbra.

14 The space is furnished with very few elements, and apart from some small paintings over a shelf, lacks any ornamentation. Quite the contrary with the library and living room. It is in the more private spaces on the first level where we appreciate Barragans monastic approach to his private quarters.

After turning around, walking down the stairs and upon entering the living room, we search for the way out into the garden. By this time in the tour we do not find it strange that a space of such importance does not have a clear entrance. The way into the garden is through a small door which goes unnoticed as it seems to belong to a cupboard. Barragán adds drama to the transition between exterior and interior by creating a tiny foyer of barely more than one by one metre in size, in the same manner than that between the vestibule and the breakfast room.

The second door finally leads us into the small terrace next to the garden which is done in the same black lava rock used in the vestibule and the stair case. It extends throughout the whole length of the house, keeping the two as separate entities.

The terrace is also the first place where we can contemplate the garden in its whole dimension.

It is also the last, as it is impenetrable.

Untamed, thick and dense vegetation covers it completely. It wasn’t always this way though, as Barragán explains: The garden has also changed. In the beginning it was covered with grass, but I’ve let vegetation to slowly cover it. Now it’s full of these beautiful trees.15

14

(Riggen, 2000)

15

(Figueroa Castrejón, 1989)

Nothing is more secret to me than the mystery of a garden. 16

Vegetation let lose. Image www.casaluisbarragan.org

courtesy

Going back inside, into the vestibule and up the stairs, we make our way into the last of the main spaces of the residence. The roof terrace is also the culmination of the house, and perhaps the most suggestive of its spaces. It is accessed through a narrow stair enclosed by bare, solid walls with no railing. At the end of the stair awaits a glass door framing the intense light. The approaching experience very much evokes the feelings Barragán remembered of the Alhambra.

of

Aerial view of the site (lot marked in red) showing the dense canopies. Image courtesy of Bing Maps.

Contrary to other gardens designed by the architect which were mostly covered with grass and intended to wander into, Barragán left his as a solely contemplative space. It was another one of the transformations Barragán thought appropriate for his home. It is an isolated case, nonetheless, as his later gardens for future clients weren’t done in this manner.

The contrast between the house’s impeccably controlled spaces and the savage nature of the garden is yet another case of the contradictions Barragán so much enjoyed. It is the sublime against the picturesque, the docile opposite the turbulent, and the obedient versus the rebellious.

Access door to the roof terrace. Image courtesy of Casa Luis Barragán

16

(Riggen, 2000)

As we exit, we find ourselves in a large open space completely enclosed by walls of different heights and colours and two projected service ducts which add volume to the composition.

Because of the height of the walls, we are without reference as to where the street is and there are no indications of the neighbouring buildings. This, along with the sense of absolute serenity, promotes a sense of extraction from the city. The sky above could well be over a city, any city, for that matter; or nowhere at all.

As we have become used to by now, the whole of the space is not presented to us at once. The terrace is arranged in an L shape. Even in open spaces Barragán made sure the sense of surprise was always there. As we turn left in our desire to discover the rest of the space, we see the green of the garden peeking inside as the only indication of what lies behind the other side. There is also one single bench in the middle, adding to the sense of solitude and as a sign of colonization of a space which seems to be lost in time, undiscovered.

The roof terrace´s first spatial sequence. Image courtesy of www.casaluisbarragan.org

“In certain European cities and Mexican towns, experience tells that when walking between walls and you see cypresses and enormous masses of trees standing out behind those walls, there’s more interest and more beauty”.17 The railing overlooking the garden was suppressed and a wall was built in its place. Image courtesy of www.casaluisbarragan.org

17

(Riggen, 2000)

In Barragán’s house, avant‐garde metaphors integrate themselves flawlessly with reminiscences of Mexican vernacular architecture such as the large wood beams, hardwood flooring, deep windows and stone patios. The result is nonetheless undeniably contemporary thanks in part to the complete lack of ornamentation and the cleanliness of its lines. Consequently the house is timeless– it could have well been built today; and universal.

This universality of space relies also in the fact that it can be comprehended and appreciated by anyone. There are few examples of modern architecture I can think of which can be regarded in such high manner by both architectural critics and people with limited knowledge of the arts or architecture.

corner, or the transformation of space depending on the way it is experienced, walked through, looked at or discovered is the reason of its mystery and surprise . The insinuation, the imagination and the bare assumption of what occurs around us give this house its immeasurable quality and iconic place in history.

Because of the liberty Barragan enjoyed by working for himself, the house became a sort of laboratory of his ideas. He had no budgets to restrain him or clients to satisfy. He erected and tore down walls as he pleased, he experimented with colours and modified windows as he saw fit. He was able to perfect and refine his vision of architecture which he then put in practice for the final stage of his career. His two other masterpieces, The Gilardi House and the Convent of the Capuchin Nuns both carry echoes of his house.

My house is a refuge, an emotional piece of architecture. It is not a cold piece of coexistence.

I believe in emotional architecture. It is very important for human beings that architecture is moved by its beauty. I am aware there are various technical solutions for a problem, but the most valid is the one which offers the user a message of beauty and emotion.18

The residence is certainly an ode to that – a most coherent manifestation of his vision. It is a house, a spiritual experience and a sensorial venture. The magic consists of mainly on the approach of the unexpected. The not knowing what will happen behind a wall or around a

18

(Riggen, 2000)

Bibliography

Álvarez, D. (2002). 4 Centenarios: Luis Barragán.

Valladolid: Secretariado de Publicaciones e Intercambio Editorial.

Barragan Foundation / Arquine + RM. (2002). Guía Luis Barragán. Switzerland: Barragan Foundation / Arquine + RM.

Barragán Foundation. (2001). Luis Barragán: La Revolución Callada. Zürich: Gustavo Gili.

Burri, R. (2000). Luis Barragán. London: Phaidon Press Limited.

Casa Estudio Luis Barragán. (s.f.). Recuperado el 27 de february de 2010, de www.casaluisbarragan.org

Figueroa Castrejón, A. (1989). El arte de ver con inocencia: Pláticas con Luis Barragán. Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana.

http://moleskinearquitectonico.blogspot.com. (s.f.).

Recuperado el 29 de March de 2010

Riggen, A. (2000). Luis Barragán: Escritos y conversaciones. Madrid: El Croquis Editorial.

Ruiz Barbarín, A. (2008). Luis Barragán frente al espejo: La otra mirada. Barcelona: Caja de Arquitectos.

www.jornada.unam.mx. (s.f.). Recuperado el 19 de March de 2010

Addendum

House plans taken from www.casaluisbarragan.org, (section edited)