Studio House of Luis Barragan

The site on which the building was subsequently erected was originally located outside of historic Takubai. Barragan himself probably bought the land in 1939 as part of a larger land purchase at a time when his career shifted from real estate to architecture. In the end, he sold another piece of land, preserving for himself only a plot for the future home. A kind of “predecessor” of the architect’s house was the “Ortega House” - a building already existing at that time, designed by Barragan for the Ortega family. The architect lived there from 1943 to 1947. The house in Takubai was originally designed and built in 1947 for Luz Escandon de R. Valenzuela, but in 1948 Barragan decided to move into it himself, despite the fact that at that time he worked on the elite area of Jardines del Pedregal in the southern part cities. Barragan lived there until his death in 1988, and during this time the house underwent many changes, functioning as a kind of laboratory for his ideas ^[3] .

In 1993, the government of Jalisco and the Arquitectura Tapatia Foundation of the Luis Barragan Foundation purchased the house, turning it into a museum in 1994. In 2004, it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site, becoming the only private residence in Latin America to receive such a status. He was included in this list as a representative of 20th-century architecture, integrating traditional and folk elements and mixing various philosophical and artistic trends of mid-20th century architecture. The house is also named one of the ten most important buildings built in the 20th century and has been the subject of various publications, including the book “La casa de Luis Barragán”, written by three experts on the work of Barragan. Despite its importance, the house is little known as a tourist attraction in Mexico City and is usually visited by architects and art fans from around the world ^{[4] [5]} .

The studio is located in two neighboring plots on the Colonia Ampliación Daniel Garza in Mexico City Miguel Hidalgo County. The main facade is at numbers 12 and 14 along Calle General Francisco Ramírez , a small street near the historic center of the former city of Takubaya. Nowadays, this is an area of ​​residence mainly of representatives of the working class, which is fully covered by the urban development of Mexico City. Ortega House is nearby. The studio house is built of concrete and covered with plaster, has two floors, a roof terrace and a garden next to it. The northern part of the building is occupied by a studio, with a separate entrance from house No. 12, and the remaining part, house No. 14, was the personal home of Barragan.

The house was built mainly in the Mexican architectural style , but the influence of world architecture is also traced in its elements ^[6] . The Mexican architectural influence is expressed in the similarity of the building with houses in the state of Jalisco, which existed in the early years of Barragan, the use of masonry for the construction of the building and the tradition of the real separation of public and private space of a person, which was implemented in the design of the building. The color scheme created by Barragan is based on the vibrant colors of traditional Mexico, as well as the artistic influences of Rufino Tamayo and Jesus Reyes Ferreira. With the exception of the breakfast area, it was not intended to use artificial lighting during the day on the premises of the house due to the presence of large windows and other openings so arranged as to let in as much light as possible. In general, the exterior of the building is characterized by a minimalist style and significant similarity with other "working" buildings of Mexico City, which existed at that time.

The facades of both parts of the building as a whole are in harmony with the general panorama of the street and look very simple, the rough concrete walls are very similar in color and structure to the walls of neighboring buildings. The only difference is that the walls of the studio are much higher. On the southwest side of the building, on the street side, there are only a small number of windows and two doors. For this reason, the street is not very visible from the house. Since the facade of the building is simple and straightforward, there is no way to guess the layout of the interior. The house is oriented inward, the center of its inner part is the garden, which itself is surrounded by high walls from all sides, except the western one. The house is sometimes compared to an “oasis with high walls”, which does not allow “urban chaos”.

The level of architecture of the building is reflected in its interior, including in the garden. Barragan used strong, inharmonious color schemes. Such a design was aimed at maximizing the use of natural light, as well as creating a free and vague space using various geometric shapes. The total area of ​​the building is 1161 m2, including two floors, a roof terrace and a garden. The height of the building is not uniform, and the two “houses” that make up the building (dwelling and studio) have different heights; the height in the studio and living room on the ground floor is twice as high as in other rooms.

The main entrance to the studio is located in building No. 12, but it can also be accessed from the living room and from the garden through the patio.

Behind the front door to house number 14 there is a dim foyer with bare walls, which acts as a buffer zone between the interiors of the house and the outside world. The lobby is small in size and poorly decorated. Its floors are made of volcanic stone. The foyer leads to a hallway with a high ceiling, yellow volcanic stone floor; one of the walls in it is painted in fuchsia color.

Behind the lobby, after a low threshold and a parchment screen, there is a living room with a ceiling twice the height, made of wooden beams, and a floor of pine boards. The walls in it are white and with small doors leading to office space. The main window of the living room overlooks the garden. Other rooms on the ground floor include a reading room and a library and a dining room, the ceilings of which are rather low and the walls are painted fuchsia; In the dining room there is an exposition of ceramic products from all regions of Mexico. The areas of this floor are separated from each other by staircases and screens.

The dining room (located in the western corridor), the living room (in the northern corridor), the breakfast corner and the kitchen overlook the garden, which is a kind of courtyard in which the fountain is located. The garden was originally supposed to be an ordinary well-groomed grass field, but then the architect decided to allow the free growth of a number of plants in the garden (including jasmine and daffodil), which would create a feeling of seeing the wild vegetation. The garden itself is small, but it seems larger, since it borders on the neighboring garden. The windows that overlook the garden were relocated after the building was finished, and traces of the old tiled windows give the interior facade an untidy look. The windows were placed and moved with attention to the interior of the house. So, one of the moved windows was originally in the dining room; perhaps this was done in order to improve the panorama of the view from this room, which opened sitting at the table.

Another exterior opening in the building is the Patio de las Ollas, a patio on the west side of the building. This patio was not in the original plan of the house, but it was the result of its later modification in order to separate the workshop from the garden. The patio is small in size, but it provides a normal level of illumination and the presence of greenery in the center of the building.

The second floor is mainly the architect’s private premises with thick wooden shutters on the windows. Access to this area of ​​the building and the roof terrace is through stone staircases that do not have a railing, which is typical for Barragan projects. On the upper floor there is a master bedroom with dressing room, a reception room and a "living room". The master bedroom has a window overlooking the garden, and it was in this room that the architect slept, calling it simply “the white room”. In this room there is a painting called Anunciación , as well as a thirty-cm-tall screen with images of African models that were cut from magazines. The dressing room adjacent to the bedroom was also called the Quarto del Cristo, or Christ's room, depicting a crucifix. The reception room, known as Tafanko, faces east, onto the street, and was originally a terrace. She and the bedrooms have a monastic appearance because of the poverty of their environment and the type of furniture in them, which reflects the Franciscan beliefs of Barragan.

The roof terrace has high walls of bloody red, dark brown gray and white, and red ceramic tiles. The walls have the effect of framing the sky, and also hide the chimney, water tank and service ladder. The terrace was used as a small observation point overlooking the patio, observatory, chapel and garden. The garden-side terrace has simple wooden railings. Also on the roof are two utility rooms, including a laundry room, there is also a balcony.

There is a garage near the entrance to building No. 14, and behind it is a turret with a spiral staircase leading to the upper floors.