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ALA100 Intro to Environmental Design Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts Arizona State University The Design School Max Underwood

The Quiet Revolution: Luis Barragán “Creation is a patient search.”

Le Corbusier “Don’t ask me about this landscape or that building. Don’t look at what I do. See what I saw.”

Luis Barragán’s advice to students.

Early on in this course I spoke about education (L. “educere” to draw out) the life long process of developing each individual’s character, intelligence and, in the case of design, his or her own voice as a designer. I would like to examine one designer Luis Barragán (1902-1988), his life long educational process, his journey of searching for his own identity, and a personal artistic expression that would embody the poetic richness of Mexico's past, present and future. Why Luis Barragán? I have selected Luis Barragán because he is revered internationally as one of the masters of modern design (he is Mexico’s equivalent to Frank Lloyd Wright). He was a designer who worked trans-disciplinary: as we will see he was a city planner, landscape architect, interior designer, engineer, real estate-developer, and architect. (He seamlessly synthesized the various environments that I have presented in the past four weeks.) Barragán masterfully combined the intangible essences of design - into a new aesthetic, an "emotional architecture,” of humanity, poetry and mystery. What is essential is not the outward appearances of form (noun), rather its essence lies with what is contained within (verb). These intimate spaces are filled with an atmosphere of mystical light, sensuous materials and arresting color, which are experienced slowly and with all five senses. Luis Barragán Morfin was born in Guadalajara, Mexico on March 9, 1902 to a nouve riche family, and spent his first eight years of his childhood, with his father, a prosperous lawyer, his mother, five brothers and four sisters, in the capital of the State of Jalisco. Guadalajara is known as the birthplace of the sombrero, tequila, carne asado, and Luis Barragán. When Luis was 8 (1910), the Mexican Revolution began and his family moved to the Ranchero de Corrales, their ranch near Mazamitla, in the highlands of the State of Jalisco. During this period, the youthful Barragán began a personal process of discovery that would last throughout his artistic career. As he traveled on horseback surveying the day-to-day workings of the Ranchero and neighboring villages, he began to understand provincial Mexican life, and was inspired by its physical beauty and spiritual richness. As he recalled, "My work is autobiographical. Underlying all that I have achieved are the memories of my father's ranch where I spent my childhood and adolescence. In my work I

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have always strived to adapt to the needs of modern living the magic of those remote nostalgic years. The lessons to be learned from the unassuming architecture of the village and provincial towns of my country have been a permanent source of inspiration." With the end of the Mexican Revolution and the Reconstruction programs of President Alvaro Obregon, Barragán’s youthful dreams of becoming a "hacendados" (a hacienda owner) faded as the government debated major agrarian reforms. These reforms included the potential redistribution of large tracts of land held by private individuals throughout Mexico. In 1922 at age 20, following his Mother's encouragement to enter a more secure vocation, Barragán begin an apprenticeship under his brother, Juan Jose Barragán, an engineer in Guadalajara and enrolled in the Free School of Engineering. But while completing a rigorous technical degree in civil engineering, Barragán developed a passion for architecture. He read endlessly and had long discussions with his friends Ignacio Diaz Morales and Rafael Urzua. After graduation in 1924 at age 22, he embarked on a two year architectural Grand Tour of France, Italy, Greece, and Spain to experience the sources of Mexican culture’s fusion of Ibero-American, Arab, Spanish and the indigenous Indians of Mexico.

Experience (L. "Experientia", to try, to experiment) Experience is the actual living through an event or events in our daily life. It requires us to personally undergo or observe something in general, as it occurs. Live life to its fullest and increase your breath of experiences in other fields, countries, and with everyone you meet. (A four year old today has had more experiences than their grandparents have in their entire life.)

During his travels, Barragán was profoundly influenced by the writings of the French poet - painter, Ferdinand Bac, particularly his Jardins Enchantes un Romancero and Les Colombieres, and by an inspirational visit to the sensual gardens of Spain's Alhambra. Without any doubt the Alhambra became a revered touchstone for Luis Barragán throughout his career. It combines a celebration of the senses (spaces/gardens dedicated to each sense), and pleasure (the intertwining of interior and exterior living, buildings and gardens). On moves slowly through layered spaces in constant discovery and suspense, within a scaled down intimacy filled with a careful handling of light and color: dark rooms before light courts. His tour came to an abrupt halt when he was notified of his Mother's death. When Barragán returned to Mexico and became involved in the Nationalistic movement that had swept the artistic and intellectual circles during the period of reconstruction following the Revolution, was in full swing. Mexican artists and intellectuals, such as Gerardo Murillo (Dr. Alt), Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, Justino Fernandez, and Carlos Pellicer were struggling to formulate an uniquely contemporary artistic expression. These artists and intellectuals were searching for a Mexican identity, developed work rooted in Mexico's own rich cultural traditions, as opposed to imitating styles from abroad, as was the trend during the last decade of President Porfirio Diaz regime, when the French mode was popular. (Alameda and Belles Artes, Christo revolt of church and land owners who we against the social revolution of the 1920’s).

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Barragán remembers, "Upon my return in 1924, I worked for my brother again, because there was no work of architects. I neglected architecture and tried to earn money in an olive mill and doing other foolish jobs. “ In 1926 at age 24, Luis Barragán opened his architectural practice in Guadalajara, along with Ignacio Diaz Morales, Pedro Castellanos, and Rafael Urzua established a group of regional architects, with a renewed interest in the provincial architecture of the State of Jalisco. During the second half of the nineteenth century Guadalajara had become a strategic center for capital investments from Mexico City and abroad. It maintained a cultural autonomy, transformed by foreign artists, writers and intellectuals. (Clients old landowners, merchants, middle class professionals all of whom were seeking to elevate their positions. Luis Barragán carefully defined a regional design ideology and formal vocabulary that was grounded in the climate, culture and building traditions of Jalisco. This was not nostalgic, but adopting what was valuable. The seventeen private houses built between 1927 and 1936 (including the Gonzalez Luna house of 1927-1928) with their traditional wall courtyards, lattice covered verandas, and arched openings clearly reflect Barragán’s attempts at defining a regional modern architecture. The houses are a carefully composed hybrid of formal elements borrowed from local vernacular houses, the Spanish haciendas and Hispanic-Moorish architecture. Through their intimately defined courtyards and enchanting fountains, they begin to evoke an "emotional" architecture. Not imported but trying to establish what is truly Mexican. (Luna was the founder of the PAN party) After his father's death in 1930 at age 28, Barragán decided to use part of his inheritance to travel for three months to Europe and North Africa. He hoped to rest, as well as to find new inspiration for his work. In France, Barragán met one of the great masters of Modern architecture, Le Corbusier, whose book Towards a New Architecture opened the way for the "machine aesthetic." Barragán was inspired by Le Corbusier's lectures and by seeing first hand the recently completed Villa Savoye in Poissy and the Beistegui Apartment in Paris. Furthermore, through personal discussions on architecture and gardens with Ferdinand Bac in his 15 acre garden, Les Colombieres in Menton, Barragán developed an understanding of the real and mythical qualities that the elements of a poetic architecture could possess. A stage for your dreams. According to Bac, "The garden holds within itself the whole universe, it is a prize of our work, and in the art of garden making, and we find the greatest sum of serenity of which man is capable." Barragán traveled to French Morocco, a culture not touched by modernity, houses and gardens defined by thick walls, and layers of secluded space. (Many French books on Africa published at this time, see Luis’s own library) Learning of President Lazaro Cardenas' agrarian reforms upon his return, Luis Barragán decided to move to Mexico City in 1936 (34). But the economic climate changed, Mexico was in the mist of being transformed from agrarian to an industrial society. In the late thirties the capital was in the grip of modernization and rapid expansion, and its artists and intellectuals were anxious to become part of the international avant-garde.

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Barragán developed close relationships with major artists: painter Chucho Reyes, sculptor Mathias Goeritz, and historian Edmundo O'Gorman. The leading architects Jose Villagran Garcia, Juan O'Gorman, and Juan Legorreta, who were deeply entrenched in the imported European Bauhaus Functionalism or International style. The houses and speculative apartment buildings Barragán completed between 1936 and 1940, reflect his struggle to define for a second time a modern architecture for Mexico. He moved away from the universalism of the International style, and looked instead to the poetics of Le Corbusier's work. The result can be seen in the Pizarro Casa calle Guadiana of 1936 and the Plaza Melchor Ocampo Apartments of 1936-1940. Both are comprised of an architectural promenade of interlocking sequential spaces and abstracted white wall planes, carefully composed and detailed. During this period Barragán focused on the production of buildings, which featured a series of unfolding of spaces, volumes and light, not merely white wall surfaces or sculptural forms. Yet in the final analysis, this new functionalist style did not satisfy him aesthetically, nor was it financially lucrative. Barragán decided to set architecture aside and pursue real estate development full time.

Perception (L. "Percipere", to seize.) Perception is the mental process by which the mind becomes conscious of an external object or phenomena through the senses; it is the mental completion of a sensation that would otherwise have nothing but a momentary existence. "

Not a subdivision of houses, but a landscape of gardens, where space is the luxury. 2.5 to 10 acre lots. The union of environment and architecture expressed in the Jardins del Pedregal de San Angel, known today as El Pedregal, "the rocky place, " reflects the political tone of the mid-1940's. During this time the government of President Avila Camacho initiated conservation legislation and began to protect the native landscape of Mexico with the establishment of National Parks. El Pedregal is an 865 acre residential subdivision, which was financed, developed, designed and built by Barragán on lava terrain created by the extinct Xitle volcano in southern Mexico City. 300 BC What resulted was a magical juxtaposition with a rugged primitive landscape, set off by the introduction of a series of gardens, elegant pools and phosphorescent colored walls. In describing the space, Barragán said, "when the garden was created apart from the trees and lawns, I discovered that the places where you could better feel the magic and mystery were in the gardens formed directly on the rock. More precisely in the contrast between grass and rocks." (Barragán would toss a handful of marbles, plant there.) Needless to say Luis Barragán made lots of money. With a newfound economic base, he was then at liberty to create where and when he pleased. These ideas are developed further in the Casa Prieto Lopez (1943-1949), the first house completed in the Jardins del Pedregal, for a mining industrialist. Here Barragán at age 41, created spaces evoking intimacy, connected to both the Mexican architectural traditions and the surrounding volcanic landscape. One enters the house from the suburban street into a square courtyard, which is dominated architecturally by a series of monumentally scaled planer walls of white and luminescent yellow. Brilliant light and soft shadows play on the plaster walls and rough-cut lava stone paving of the court. Upon entering what appears at first glance to be

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a group of individual rooms based on traditional hacienda construction techniques, one discovers the massive walls and beamed ceilings have been transformed. (Dialogue of tradition and the modern).(Prieto Lopez’s daughter founded Dupus) A linked series of identifiable figural spaces, split floor levels, and fragmented wall planes of varying scale; texture and color encourage movement through a family of spaces modulated by light, and then out into the landscape framed by large spatial window opening. In the private garden, with its view to the native landscape beyond, huge lava out cropping interrupt the linear quality of the lava stone terraces and stillness of the swimming pool, emphasizing the ultimate power of nature over man. These ideas continue to be refined in the Casa Luis Barragán (1947-1988) at age 45 in the working class neighborhood of Tacubaya, on the site of an abandoned mine. His own house, which throughout his life was experimental design laboratory constantly changing and evolving. The house is a house of silence and solitude, a series of unfolding experiences, which provide a seamless connection between the house and its two landscapes: one physical and one metaphysical. One enters through a neutral urban facade, into a sky lit stair hall and encounters an unfolding series of free floating wall planes, which create contrasting zones of light, shadow and color to accentuate movement into the two story living room. One then discovers that the living room is only a transition to the two other landscape realms accessed by the two major architectural elements in the space. A large spatial window visually opens to the public outdoor garden and landscape beyond, and a cantilevered pine board stair physically leads to some private magical world. After returning to the stair hall, and ascending through the private portions of the house to the roof we individually experience the metaphysical reality. As Barragán describes "The sky is the true facade of the house, in this garden of clouds.” In 1951 at age 49, Barragán traveled again to Europe, North Africa and to remote areas of Mexico, further refining his knowledge of the Moorish, Spanish, and Hispanic architectural traditions. He was fascinated with the Islamic Garden, as well as with the Mexican colonial architecture of conventos, haciendas, and simple popular houses. As he observed "I have frequently visited with reverence the now empty monumental monastic buildings that we inherited from the powerful religious faith and architectural genius of our colonial ancestors, and I have always been deeply moved by the peace and well being to be experienced in those uninhabited cloisters and solitary courts. How I have wished that these feelings may leave a mark on my work." Barragán took for inspiration in places no one had looked before. It was also during this period that Barragán became interested in the work of the Metaphysical painters Giorgio de Chirico, Carlo Carra, Giorgio Morandi and the Magic Realist painters, Paul Delvaux, Pierre Roy, Balthus; and their abilities to convey subconscious dreams and emotions through their work. Intrigued by their ability to create spaces of doubt, to stop time with the use of contrast: vast empty spaces and the intimate places, brilliant luminances of color and shadow.

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As Giorgio De Chirico remarked, “One must not forget that a picture should always be the reflection of a profound sensation, and that the reflection signifies strange, and strange signifies little known or unknown. To be truly immortal a work of art must stand completely outside human limitations; logic and common sense are detrimental to it. Thus is approximates a dream and infantile memories.” These emotional aspects and rituals of Mexican life became the foundations for Barragán’s later work. Barragán began to place greater emphasis on abstraction, bright color, tactile materials, and light to develop an individual expression of Mexican life. Simple walls, plazas and fountains. The Clarisas Capuchinas Sacramentarias Monasterio del Purisimo Corazón de María is a meditative Catholic Carmelite order of women, inspired by the spirit of the Virgin Mary, who have devoted their lives to serve God and Jesus Christ through poverty, silence, contemplation and continuous selfless prayer. In 1953, with their existing convent in disrepair, with leaking roofs and crumbling walls, the nuns approached Luis Barragán (age 48) and asked for his assistance. In that initial conversation, the Mother Superior mentioned that they would like to have an oratory as well, a small space where all the nuns could gather together in song and prayer. Over the next seven years, Luis Barragán proposed and funded a series of restorations to the existing convent in addition to the construction of a new Chapel. As Luis Barragán describes, “In my architecture, both color and light have been fundamental constants. One as well as the other is a basic factor in the creation of an architecture environment since they can change the concept of space. In my project for the Chapel for the Capuchinas Sacramentarias del Purisimo Corazón de Maria, for example, I very carefully studied light as well as color since I wanted to create an atmosphere of spiritual absorption and quiet.” Recalling Jesus’ words, “I am the light of the world.” In the San Cristobal horse ranch of 1967-1968 at age 65, for the Egerstrom’s (Erickson electronics and communications). Barragán captures the essence of equestrian life, celebrating its rituals and the beauty of the thoroughbred horse, through the creation of a dreamlike moment of poetic balance and tension between horse, rider and the native landscape. Influenced by the equestrian religious pageants performed in the atrios or walled courtyards of 17th century Mexican open-air churches, Barragán transformed the equestrian complex of stables, paddock, dressage fields and owner's house into an animated spatial ensemble. It was his desire to create an "architecture for horses, which celebrates their shape and movement." In affect, "the horses become actors, inhabiting a new mythological stage." As one moves through the masterful sequence of unfolding and interlinked spaces occupied by these majestic creatures, one discovers the heart of the complex the horse scaled paddock. One is immediately confronted by a fantastic world of seemly inexplicable architectural elements. Walls of brilliant pink, mauve and violet, define the paddock creating a place of silence and mystery for the single shade tree and fountain with a pool. Openings in the walls frame views of the surrounding landscape and allow the riders to honorifically pass through as they leave this precinct for the adjoining dressage fields. The walls can be viewed as strong symbols of Mexican popular culture - monumental, brightly colored, timeless- and the space created by the walls can as well be interpreted as a reference to a bygone time - the central plaza of a rural village with animals surrounding a simple fountain, and shaded by a single tree. Thus, Barragán connects the viewer spiritually to the past, present and future of Mexican life. So how did Barragán design?

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“I began each morning at about half past seven,” as Luis, recalled. “ I walk to the construction site, before the workmen arrive and study the progress. Then discuss the day’s work when the workmen arrive. After which I return to the office. I have lunch with my staff at about four in the afternoon. My evenings are spent listening music and reading books on art and architecture; as well as novels.

I usually begin a project at the onset without setting pencil to page, without sketching a single drawing. I set down and try and imagine the wildest things. It is a process that involves a certain madness. After this initial brainstorm, I let the ideas rest a couple days, sometimes several days. I return to them and begin to draw small sketches in perspective, very often on a drawing pad. I usually work seated in a chair. I never design using a table or drawing board.

Afterwards I give this sketch to a draughtsman and we began to draw blueprints

including the greenery and accents. We almost always use a cardboard maquette (model) with which we work, making continuous changes (with advice from respected friends, and local people who are walking by).

I generally design studies for the facades and volumes drawing only the contours,

leaving the masses white. Then I place black cardboard cutouts of varying sizes arranging them in different ways. I usually come up with ten proposals, pinning them to the wall and studying them carefully, select those I find most compelling.

Once the construction work has begun, I change certain walls by making them wider,

lower, higher or eliminating them al together. I feel that if a painter can completely modify a canvas, an architect should be able to do the same with his work. The work is a creative process.

At the Egerstrom house, there was some opposition as to building I considered a very

striking wall for the entrance. So one day, I had a structure made on wooden rollers built and covered with cloth to simulate a wall. The owners were finally convinced and the wall was put up.” In Casa Francisco Gilardi of 1976-1980 at age 74, the last house designed and built by Barragán, architecture based entirely upon celebrating the Mexican spirit through the symbolic qualities of space, colored light and water. Upon entering the house, located in Tacubaya, Mexico City, one discovers a sequence of unfolding spaces defined by richly colored horizontal and vertical planes animated by the careful modulation of light, reflection and shadow. Barragán said, "In the house I made for Mr. Gilardi, colors play an important role. The patio is lilac (from the flowers of the giant Jacaranda tree), very vibrant. The corridor (with its yellow light) prepares the voyage through the house to arrive at an important space, a dining room with a pool. Suddenly, from the pool a magenta wall cuts the water and almost touches the ceiling. The wall gives a sense to the space, makes it magic, and creates tension over the space. From the ceiling a light well bathes that wall emphasizing its role."

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Luis Barragán painted with light. For Barragán color was the essence of the Mexican spirit, the only luxury in the provincial home, and timelessly linked to Mexico through its iconographic references. But Barragán also viewed color with a practical eye. As he once elaborated, "I consider color to be functional. It can make a house peaceful or joyous or erotic. It is useful to enlarge or shrink a space. It is also useful to add a touch of magic a space needs. I use color, but when designing I do not think in it. I define it when the space is built. Then I visit the place continuously at different times of the day, and start to imagine color from the most wild and incredible tones. I go back to books on paintings, I see the work of Surrealists, in particular Giorgio de Chirico, Balthus, Rene Magritte, Paul Delvaux and those of Chucho Reyes. I go about the pages, looking at images and paintings and suddenly I identify some color I had imagined. I select it. Later on large pieces of cardboard I ask the master painter to reproduce them and tape the cardboards to the unpainted walls. I leave them for a few days, changing the tones and contrast, finally I select the most appealing one and order it painted." In accepting the 1980 Pritzker Prize, the profession's equivalent of the Nobel Prize, Barragán remarked, "I have 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. 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." Conclusion In 1988, we lost a prolific human being. As we have seen, Luis Barragán’s his life long educational process, was an endless search for his own identity, and a personal artistic expression that would embody the poetic richness of Mexico's past, present and future. Barragán’s designs rely upon the effect and power of place, created by the refined play of light, color, scale and sequence on simple forms and humble materials. Places which encourage and enable authentic sensory, full body experiences; environments which call us to more fully realize our senses, feel the depth of our emotion, reconstruct the boundaries of our intellect, subdue our ego, and ultimately assist in truly understanding the profound connection and oneness between individual existence, all of humanity and eternity. One of Luis Barragán’s favorite quotes was from Somerset Maugham's (maum) "The Trembling of a Leaf" "Let us navigate a sea of magic in the midst of an inconceivable silence. This is beauty. Few times do you see beauty before you. Look at it well, because what you have in front of you will not come back to see you again because the moment is transitory; but memory will last inside your heart. You have just established contact with eternity."