#luis barragan

Cuadra San Cristóbal, Atizapán, Mexico, designed by Luis Barragán.

The ethos of modern architecture in Mexico in contrast to the Anglo-Saxon culture is less about disruption and more about continuity: characterized by a continued examination of historic examples, Mexican modern architecture often oscillates between the vernacular and the abstract as can be best observed in Luis Barragán’s works. The latter’s life and career started in Guadalajara in western Mexico in an area without many indigenous settlements but a strong economic upswing since the 19th century. In this climate Barragán and his contemporaries, architect-engineers known as „Escuela Tapatia“, during the 1920s reinterpreted the regional Jalisco architecture and developed a modernism rooted in history. For them the garden represented a new realm of freedom that, inspired by French painter Ferdinand Bac, offered the possibility to redefine the relationship and boundaries of interior and exterior.

The work of the „Escuela Tapatia“ in the 1980s served as a point of reference for a young generation of Mexican architects trained in Guadalajara by, among others, Ignacio Díaz Morales, one of the protagonists of the 1920s School of Guadalajara. They, i.e. Hugo González, Juan Paloman, Emilia Orendáin, Enrique Toussaint and Sergio Ortiz, again reinterpreted the historic example of course under different circumstances: on much larger sites the architects created a connection with the exterior spaces directly through the house instead of using transitional elements. The result was a fusion with the garden that conditioned and transformed the house while the facade was mainly there to frame the vistas towards the former.

Fuente de los Amantes (Lover's Fountain)