Built in 1948, this Mexican modern house, designed by Luis Barragán, is recognized for its international significance. The house-studio, inhabited by the architect himself until 1988, incorporates principles of the vernacular architecture of the region in its design, including the use of striking colors. Barragán has been one of the most influential Mexican architects, and his house is one of the most visited places in Mexico City.
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Luis Barragan's house is located on a small street in a historic neighborhood in Mexico City, a popular neighborhood made up of simple traditional Mexican homes. Within this neighborhood, workshops, small shops, and building material suppliers can also be found.
Barragán attempted to give the design a personal touch by dividing its layout into highly diverse spaces, but with a logic that integrates each of its parts, and by integrating traditional Mexican architecture with modern international architecture.
Upon entering the house from the street, the user is met with the vestibule, which is illuminated through a yellow glass, flooding the room with a warm light. Being the boundary between the interior and exterior, this space is a waiting area that prepares the user to enter and absorb the characteristic architecture of this house, where stone, wood, and whitewashed walls stand out.
Next to the foyer is the entrance hall, separated by a door. The play of light and reflections begins to flood the space, thanks to the incidence of the yellow light on the walls painted in gold and pink. "The chromatic experience can also be read as a complementary sequence. In this way, the yellow of the porter's lodge saturates the pupil to receive the pink color which is, in turn, preparation and catalysis, if we open one more door and look out to the dining room window that has the intense green and shaded background of the garden." (Casa Luis Barragán)
A ramp leads the visitor alongside a wall towards a dressing room space visually separated from the entrance by walls that do not reach the ceiling, to create a sense of spatial continuity and fluidity.
To reach the different spaces, Barragán uses various resources to give modern spatial fluidity to the architecture of his house, such as the use of shadows, colors, contraction and expansion, etc. This is clearly seen in the journey toward the living room-library.
The back facade of the house, facing west, is completely different from the cold and impenetrable facade facing the street. And it's not just because of the proportion of the openings, but in the relationship and dialogue that the facade generates between the interior and exterior, in this case between the house and the garden. For example, a large window is inserted in the living room, which faces the garden, allowing nature to have this constant relationship with the interior.
Returning to the different spaces of the house, we come across the double-height library, which is subdivided into small areas by half-height white walls. One of these spaces houses a solid wood desk table. The sequence of low walls will now accompany the spiral journey to a plank staircase, which becomes a characteristic element of this house.
By contrast, we have the dining and breakfast room, which have windows overlooking the garden. In the dining room, Barragán decided to add another color to the previously used palette, managing to detach the vegetation from the ground. In the breakfast room, the user perceives the garden from a different perspective, where the view is protected by walls through a raised window. In the spacious kitchen, the garden only appears when the door is opened, and it is very bright thanks to the translucent windows of different proportions compared to those previously described.
The three bedrooms, one for guests and two on the second level, have a minimalist character and similar furniture and textures. Like the rest of the house, these spaces are flooded with natural light through a play of reflections and colors.
On the second level, the architect's room and the afternoon room take over the view toward the sheltered garden. They are accessed through a yellow space again illuminated in the morning thanks to the light from the vestibule that bounces until it reaches the rooms.
The dressing room, also filled with light and spatial fluidity, is the transition space to reach the terrace on the top level, which is characterized by being "an abstract composition of bare walls that functioned as a chromatic laboratory and whose architectural function is both evocative and unusual. The terrace is where the denouement of the complex spatial and poetic construction of the house takes place." (Casa Luis Barragán)
Barragán decided to raise the perimeter walls of the house, in order to achieve the introspection of the user. On the other hand, the chromatic variations indicate the exploration that this renowned Mexican architect made on the interactions between color and light in the spaces he built.
Architect: Luis Barragán Location: Calle General Francisco Ramírez, Ciudad de México, México Year: 1948 References: Casa Luis Barragán Photographs: Courtesy of Casa Luis Barragán, Flickr: LrBln, picacch, Omar Omar.
