Who doesn’t like to travel?
And it’s even more exciting when this possibility is almost given to you with the purpose to deepen the research on what one like the most – in my case – architecture. That’s how, in 2015, I decided to apply to a sort of scholarship called Prémio Tavora, 9th edition, promoted in Portugal only for architects.
At that time I was crazy in love with Luis Barragan’s work, I am still… all those very sensitive spaces and complementarity between garden-house or garden-fountains have always fascinate me. That’s why I decided to bring this article and publish it, since it has been kind of forgotten in my archives.
And despite the fact that I didn’t win this scholarship, the desire to make this trip is still very present for me, and who knows, maybe it can be also quite inspirational for those passionate about architecture and specially the architecture of this genius architect.
Bellow I translate the article, hoping you to get the best of it.
Vernacular Modernism: the emotional architecture of Luis Barragán
The Proposal for the Trip
“It has been incredible the enormous proportion of the words like beauty, inspiration, magic, seducement, but also serenity, silence, intimate and amazement; that has been disappearing from the articles dedicated to architecture”. This has been a part of the Barragan’s speech when he won the Pritzker (Nobel for Architecture) in 1980, and curiously but also sadly, has been quite present also today.
Nowadays the rush is taking us to a inevitable superficiality, it is making us to forget the essencial that architecture should bring – which is the ability to calm us, to take away the fear, and let us live in tranquility and appreciate the beauty around us. But in order to create beauty, we need to be constantly searching for it and then to be able to embrace its abundance.
This was exactly what Luis Barragan followed to do when he, by himself, started the journey to discover the Mediterranean’s culture. He was searching for the beauty of Alhambra (Spain), the beauty of the courtyards and gardens of so many villas, in order to be able to establish his own principles of his creative process. This principles, basically, are the ingredients which allowed him to establish the perpetuity of the mediterranian culture in the new one – Mexico reality, without being totally foreigner to the local one. So Barragan was slowly introducing something “new” which comes from an “old”, but the new is as beautiful as the old or even more.
Thus, I believe in the importance of our esthetic experiences in loco, represents the real value of our creative process, and Barragan also defended this thesis by saying: “Don’t look at the things I’ve done if you have not seen yet what I’ve seen”.
The plan of the trip
Naturally and insistently I would try to visit the many places as possible created by Luis Barragan, in particularly the ones from his latest creative phase – recognized as Emocional Architecture. Not forgetting the places he visited and have inspired him in order to creat his beautiful work. This places are closer to us geographically but specially those are the places which defines our cultural identity – places like Alhambra, or the gardens of Les Colombières by Ferdinand Bac.
In order to make this trip real, May and June would be the most appropriate months to do it. I’s when the beauty of this places is at its maximum splendor. “The soul of the gardens at this time offer their best serenity that a human being can have at its disposal” (Ferdinand Bac). Find the Jacaranda totally flourished – the tree that has originated the Gilardi House, all this fresh colors and emocional light could create an unique experience indeed.
This trip pretends to be organized into two big themes where the garden it’s the common ground element – actually the garden is the most important concept explored by the architect through all his life and work, and it’s that element that has been always capable of creating that beauty, serenity and silence.
There is also the intention to visit the Architectural Foundation of Tapatía which hold the biggest personal archives of Luis Barragan. Here is where I pretend to find out much more about the concrete references that Barragan was influenced by – the references that has inspired him to create such beautiful things. All this graphical elements and biographical annotations are essencial for this research.
FERDINAND BAC – Jardins Enchantés, de Marie-Claude Létanc in Nice Historique – Acadèmia Nissarda
THE GARDEN AND THE HOUSES
. Casa González Luna, Guadalajara, Jalisco, 1929-1930
Is the most significant work Barragan has realized at the beginning of this carrier. The arabic-andaluz influence is very explicit. The floor plan is very complex in its relationship between interior and exterior. Here we immediately recognize the theoretical principles of Ferdinand Bac and the mediterranean culture.
. Casa Ortega (1st House of Barragán), Cidade do México, 1940-1943
This is the first house Barragan built for himself; and later acquired by Sir. Ortega. It’s a house very rich in courtyards, terraces and gardens – actually only 20% of the total area of the plot is occupied by the interior spaces of the house.
. Casa-Estúdio Barragán, Cidade do México, 1948-1949
It’s almost the Barragan’s most experimental-house. Here he explored very unique spacial situations. It is one of the houses that best established the dialogue with it’s garden, because the construction of this house happened parallel to the project of the El Pedregal, where he explores and matures all his research about gardens. Today, this house is the Museum-House of Luis Barragan and it was been classified as mexican national patrimony in 1992.
. Casa Gálvez, Cidade do México, 1955-1957
It’s a house Barragan built right after his trip to north of Africa im 1952. It’s a synthesis between modern and traditional and between the indigenes culture and the mediteranian culture.
. Casa Gilardi, Cidade do México, 1976-1977
A house for a art collector. Here the principle Barragan has established all those previous years are becoming very recognizable and reaching the required tension. This is the house which has been built around a tree- a Jacaranda.
. Convento das Madres Capuchinhas em Tlalpan, Cidade do México, 1952-1955
This is actually an intervention to restructure an pre-existing convent of the franciscan order, but also the construction of a new chapel. The space generates this mystical atmosphere, that only a profoundly religious person can reach.
LUIS BARRAGÁN – Casa Barragán, Cidade do México, 1948-49 in Barragan Foundation, Birsfelden, Switzerland
THE GARDENS AND THE FOUNTAINS
. Jardins del Pedregal de San Ángel, Cidade do México, 1945-1952
This is the project on which Barragan has dedicated the most of his attention and thinking. It’s a work with an enormous sensibility and respect with the existing landscape. It was the work that has been published the most in the most prestigious architectural magazines worldwide. With this project Barragan has reached his international recognition.
. Las Arboledas, Cidade do México, 1958-61
It’s a complex project where the fountains and the landscape in it’s most wild form has reached an extraordinary complementarity. The Red Wall, the Campanile’s Fountain and the Drinking Fountain are all the architectural elements of this project completely dedicated to the horses.
. Los Clubes, Cidade do México, 1963-64
Here Luis Barragan its again the client himself. This freedom allows him to continue exploring the principles and concepts applied in Los Arboledas. The Lover’s Fountain is the most remarkable piece of this project.
Why this trip?
The passion of Luis Barragan for the mediterranean culture, and specifically for the magical environment of Alhandra’s courtyards and gardens, but also the discovering of the writings and work of his most inspired master – Ferdinand Bac, have profoundly inspired his entire life as a creator.
It has been traveling to Europe in 1924-25, specifically through Spain and France, that Barragan established his architectural principles. He combines the vernacular architecture of his origins, the Jalisco architecture, with this knowledge that he acquires from traveling and discovering the mediterranean culture. From the vernacular architecture of Jalisco Barragan keeps the poetical way of living the interior spaces, and from mediterranean culture he takes the sensibility how one can best create the most serene gardens and to reach the most emotional spaces by manipulating the quality of light, in order to attribute that intimacy that he believed a man need to live in and with beauty.
That’s how Barragan, always sensible and insisting in reaching the most sensitive through his work, creating spaces full of light, color, life. He created unbelievable gardens, believing in the beauty of a simple place covered by lava – o Pedregal de San Ángel. His house is one of the biggest architectural manifestation of all times – an emotional architecture where he condensed all his believes of a lifetime.
However, and quoting Barragan again: “it’s essential that an architect could see; i mean, see in a way which is not limited by a totally racional analysis”. And again, meaning that the importance of our esthetic and emocional experiences are the real value of our creative process – we architects and creative people.
nataliabencheci 