LUIS BARRAGÁN MORFÍN (1902-1988)

Architecture

Luis Barragán, one of the most important architects of the

20th century, was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, to a
prosperous and Catholic family of landowners, on March 9,
1902. He was the son of Juan José Barragán and Ángela
Morfín. He spent his childhood with his parents and his six
brothers, three women and three men, in the Santa Monica
neighborhood of his hometown. He used to spend his
vacations and long stays at the Corrales hacienda, located
near Mazamitla,

Jalisco. The
Children's experience of those stays in the countryside, in
the rural Mexican environment, in the mountain nature
where the family farm was located, would leave a deep mark
that
it would reflect in his artistic creation resulting in the "definition of a universal Mexican style".
Between 1919 and 1923 he studied at the Escuela Libre de Ingenieros de Guadalajara, where
he met and developed a deep and lasting friendship, with characters such as Rafael Urzúa and
Pedro Castellanos. His interest in architecture, as he himself stated, had been born
fundamentally from the influence of the architect Agustín Basave, one of his teachers. On
December 3, 1923, Luis Barragán graduated as a civil engineer, however, a trip abroad and
some changes in the School, prevented him from receiving the title of architect, even though he
had completed the supplementary subjects that the school offered to obtain that title. Between
1924 and 1925 he traveled through France and Spain where he learned about the urban and
architectural planning of the time. He came into contact with European art, visited the Paris
Decorative Arts exhibition, from which arises the so-called Art Deco, a style that he recreated
when he participated in the construction of the Revolution Park in Guadalajara. On that trip he
met Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Le Corbusier and Picasso. He read Marcel Prous and Tolstoy, I visit
museums and cities. He made a discovery that would define his vocation as a "gardener" as he
called it: the Ferdinan Bac gardens in Les Colombiers. On his visit to the Alambra in Granada,
he recognized features of Mexican architecture such as high walls, small windows, interior
gardens, and inward-facing houses.

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 González Luna (1928), Enrique Aguilar (1928) and G. Cristo (1929), among others. In 1941 he
made his first garden in Mexico City, where he took advantage of uneven terrain to build
platforms and compartments in the Generalife style.

In 1930 he traveled to the United States with his father, who died on the way. Forced by this
circumstance, he took over the family businesses in Guadalajara. Between 1931 and 1932 he
made a second trip through Europe. He also traveled through North Africa, where he was
impressed with the Mediterranean and Arab architecture. With the Moroccan buildings, I return
to the dim interiors, the play of light caused by the small windows and the integration of the
construction into the landscape. Seen in perspective, Luis Barragán's work is aimed at caring
for and protecting the quality of life of man, in the face of the inconveniences of modern society
and large cities. A house is a refuge and that is why he radically opposed the large windows
that were so fashionable when he conceived his style.

When he moved to live in Mexico City, he first worked intensely, in what he called his
"commercial" stage, and then retired and began creating the great works of his maturity and
developing his first gardens. In 1945, he teamed up with José Bustamante to develop the
planning and urbanization project for the Jardines del Pedregal de San Ángel subdivision,
south of Mexico City. He was impressed by the beauty of the volcanic landscape and designed
gardens and living spaces that merge with the beauty of that place. The result was an
innovation in landscape architecture.

Luis Barragan was a man of contemplation and silence, a man of spaces

and lights, this virtuoso of an art without words was always a man of
books. His generosity towards his friends and towards people stands out
from his personality, he was generous and detached. In the houses he
built for his friends Efraín González Luna and José Arreola Adame
(1929-1931), the library is a place of privilege. But especially in his own, in
the house that he designed for himself in the fullness of his creative
maturity. He also had a relationship with José Clemente Orozco, while he
lived in New York and with whom he spent a few months, there he met
truly avant-garde architects such as Federico

Kiesler. Its architecture is also influenced by friends, such as Ignacio Díaz Morales, Jesús
Reyes Ferreira, Mathias Goeritz, Ferdinan Bac and Kiesler. In 1951 he met Richard Neutra,
with whom he established a good relationship. Despite having great architect friends, he did not
share all his leisure time with them, but also with painters, poets, sculptors and dance
connoisseurs such as Carlos Pellicer, Jesús Reyes Ferreira and Miguel Covarrubias, his
devoted friends.

He built two churches with their respective front squares, one of them in a town near Corrales
and a wooden kiosk in the Plaza de Chapala. He also built the chapel of
. It was a donation from him to the
Order of the Sacramental Nasturtiums of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, used for the first time
the triangular prism and the color orange in a church.

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 Between 1955 and 1957 he made the Jardin del Bosque subdivision in Guadalajara, and this
past year he was commissioned to design the symbol of the Ciudad Satélite subdivision. There
I put the idea of ​building towers inspired by the temple of San Gimignano, from Italy. The
sculptor Mathías Goeritz collaborated in this work, and he used again the shape of the
triangular prism. Luis Barragán bequeathed an abundant and valuable architectural production
in the fields of design and the construction of an intense and deep human content, of vital force,
of love, to artisanal workmanship, of austerity and mysticism, his work has expressive
characteristics of a personal style

unmistakable and regional

masterfully accomplished, making its author the greatest exponent of contemporary Mexican
architecture.
In 1976 he received the National Prize for the Arts, and became a member of the American
Institute of Architects; in 1984 he was named an honorary member of the American Academy
and Institute of Arts and Letters in New York City; During that year, the University of
Guadalajara awarded him the title of Doctor Honoris Causa; in 1985 he received the annual
Jalisco Architecture award.

In 1980, Luis Barragán was distinguished by the Pritzker Prize, established by the Hyatt
Foundation to honor in life the architect whose work demonstrates talent, vision and
commitment, and who has contributed significantly to humanity in creating the environment
through architecture. . This distinction has been considered as a kind of Nobel Prize in this
field. Luis Barragan, died on November 22, 1988 in Mexico City, his remains wrapped with the
national flag, rested for two hours in the main hall of the National Institute of Fine Arts.

Luis Barragan, the architect who transcended the borders

that allow it today to be history and current affairs, tradition and modernity.

"Barragán's work is a true watershed in the history of Mexican

architecture. It transcended geographical and temporal borders to
maintain a validity that today allows it to be, at the same time, history
and actuality, tradition and modernity"

Saúl Juárez, general director of the National institute of fine arts

The silent revolution. Luis Barragan Archive, It is an exhibition that

is part of the activities carried out by the National Council for
Culture and the Arts, through the INBA, in collaboration with the
Barragan Foundation and the Vitra Design Museum, within the
commemoration of the first centenary of the birth of Luis Barragán,
fulfilled last March 9.

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 This exhibition brings together a selection of original sketches: drawings, sketches, models,
furniture and photographs; in total, 130 documented works from the Barragan Foundation
archive that has around 15 thousand drawings and documents and the same amount of
photographic material, which includes the largest collection of photographs by Armando Salas
Portugal. The pieces on display refer us to the work done by this great architect from the 1920s
to 1988, the year he died. With this you can see the wealth of its archive, the various

artistic influences that marked his career as well

As the complex
creative itinerary that was his own life. When
interviewed about the exhibition, Federica Zanco,
president of the
The Barragan Foundation explained that this
project originated with the acquisition of the
Mexican architect's file in 1995, carried out with the
intention of preserving the unity of this legacy that
was to be sold in New York, for which reason the

risk of being in the hands of

different collectors or groups of private initiative.
From then on, work of study, cataloging, conservation and the
final selection of this sample began. "It has been a research work
to make a kind of reasoned catalog of his work and the exhibition
goes along these lines, so it is based on a critical reading that
describes the evolution of his traditional career and his creative
language" .

The exhibition began its journey in the Vitra Design Museum,

where 40 thousand visitors were received. Later she traveled to
Vienna, London, Valencia and Japan. To date, more than
300,000 people have visited it, and now their roaming at the
Palacio de Bellas Artes ends.

"After this investigation, I have found in Barragán

an immense capacity to work at the level of abstraction, but also of the sensuality of the
elements. This particular mix is ​something that everyone perceives and enjoys. There is also an
intense spirituality in his work, an intense love for his country and a great Mexican identity,
which did not mean for him to close in his small circle, but to open up to the world and
communicate himself, giving him something and receiving something from him ", concluded the
president of the Barragán Foundation.

Thus, the tour is divided into four thematic sections: The urban landscape
examines Barragán's way of approaching the design of new satellite cities and of constructing
monumental structures thought of as symbols of these cities. In this sense, projects of the
stature of the Satellite Towers and the common courtyard of the Salk Institute stand out. The
architectural landscape reflects his idea about new residential developments: close to a
landscape

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 natural but still belonging to the city. His El Pedregal project stands out here.

The houses built and adapted by Barragán, in which he himself lived, and which served as a
kind of laboratory where he developed many of the principles that characterized his
architectural style, are the
section content An inner biography.
Finally, in The search for abstraction Material referring to the Gálvez House,
the Gilardi House and the Tlalpan Chapel is exhibited, which, together with
a selection of unpublished or little-known designs, account, among other
things, for the influence that the French landscape architect Ferdinand Bac
received and his travel in Africa and Europe.

Mercedes Iturbe recalled a quote from Barragán: "the private life of beauty does not
deserve to be called human", with which, he assured, he was consistent throughout
his life and work, apart from other aspects such as spaces, light and the silences.

Of the exhibition, he explained that it shows an intimate, profound tour

of a large number of documents, such as
photographs, projects, drawings, magazines, films and videos, which give a very important
record of who he was and how he developed his work. For her part, Sara Topelson recalled
that this architect has been especially recognized for the poetry and intimacy of his spaces, for
generating surprise, enchantment, magic, beauty and also serenity, silence, intimacy and
astonishment.

The silent revolution. Luis Barragan Archive, will remain on display at the Nacional and Diego
Rivera rooms of the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Arte, from next November 7 to February 9,
2003

The architect Luis Barragán (1902-1988) said that a work of art that does not have serenity is a
mistake, an idea shared by his North American colleagues Billie Tsien and Tod Williams, who
gave a keynote speech yesterday in honor of the Mexican creator in the main room from the
Palace of Fine Arts. Tsien and Williams assure that they have a great affinity with the principles
that Barragán expressed in their work, because basically, what they seek is to highlight the
sense of calm

His mark
Article from the Reforma newspaper, culture section by BAPTIST VIRGINIA
Luis Barragán was one of the pioneering architects in printing the Mexican identity to urban
spaces
Jalisco architect Luis Barragán (1902-1988), one of the pioneers in printing the Mexican identity
in urban spaces, left his mark in various cities in the country, but especially in Guadalajara and
the District

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 Federal, in which he began to build private residences in the second half of the 1920s.

The Civil Engineer from the University of Guadalajara traveled through Europe, where he came
into contact with Le Corbusier, the famous French architect who renewed architectural concepts
based on social life and who marked his work.

Among the urban works carried out by Barragán, several fountains and gardens in Jardines del
Pedregal stand out, as well as the reconstruction of the Convent of the Capuchinas Sacramentarias
in Tlalpan, the urbanization of the
Jardines del Bosque de Guadalajara and Las Arboledas subdivisions in Naucalpan, Estado de
México and the landscaping project for the Pierre Marqués hotel in Acapulco, Guerrero.

With the sculptor Mathias Goeritz he created the Torres de Ciudad Satélite in 1957. Later he went
to La Jolla, California (USA), where he intervened in the project of a plaza.

The recipient of the 1976 National and Prinker 1980 Arts Awards and an honorary member of
the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in New York, he also has the studio of
filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, in Los Angeles, CA, and the Lighthouse of Commerce in
Monterrey, Nuevo León.

Barragán's work has been the subject of several exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New
York, in 1976, and at the Rufino Tamayo Museum, in Mexico, in 1985, the year in which he received
the Jalisco Prize

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