LUIS BARRAGAN'S WORKS

1. LUIS BARRAGAN
1
BY
SAAD AHMED

2. CONTENT
 INTRODUCTION
 IDEOLOGY
 PHILOSOPHY
 CONCEPT
 WORKS EXAMPLES
1 BARRAGAN’S STUDIO HOUSE
2 CHAPEL OFTHE CAPUCHINAS
SAAD AHMED

3. Besides landscaping, Barragán searched for the technical
domain of materials, elements and concepts in
architecture in order to create emotional
architecture.
This new concept was coined by Mathias Goeritz, one of
his best colleagues, around 1950 as an antidote
against the rationalist excesses of modern
architecture.
However for Luis Barragán both concepts were
interesting
INTRODUCTION
SAAD AHMED

4. His architecture responds to the contextual and natural inheritance of
Mexico, signifying a new residential dwelling predicated on
modernity and indigenously rooted in the symbol of Mexican living.
Luis Barragan´s Architecture has been recognized by its
aesthetical and philosophical values. For Barragan, the existence of
an international or even national architecture was absurd, because
every region had to generate its architecture rooted on its time,
culture, traditions, climate and materials. A strong emphasis was
given to the natural environment and the cultural context.
4
IDEOLOGY
SAAD AHMED

5. Critical regionalism and its role in Barragan's designs:
Barragan developed a school of thought that Kenneth Frampton defined
as “critical regionalism” that was based on the idea of a regional
attitude towards design. For Barragan, a design must take into
account its physical and climatic conditions as well as its cultural
background.
However, his approach to traditional design is based on the ability of the
architect to identify the essential building elements and then to
“convent” them into a contemporary image.
5SAAD AHMED

6. Barragan´s architectural designs consider the sensual perception as a
key element of the spatial experience. Therefore his proposals pay
particular attention to sun patterns, day lighting, noise
control and ventilation.
He used his personal intuition and perception to manipulate the physical
factors and achieve a carefully balanced equilibrium between
physical conditions and built environment
The manner in which his buildings are integrated within their given
‘‘place’’ is perhaps the key factor in his significance
6SAAD AHMED

7. While drawing from cultural and regional
references of Mexico, Barragan offered
a utopian vision of the unification of the
vernacular Mexican style with architectural
purity and simplicity
Stucco walls with bricks, intense saturated
colors,and natural illumination possessing
a spiritual quality defined Barragan’s
designs
SAAD AHMED

8. Natural light–direct and indirect- give spaces a different character thought
the day and in various times of the year. Therefore, he planned to
control amount and quality (color temperature) of natural light. This
was done through the extensive use of large scale models that were
professionally photographed. This stage was always preliminary,
allowing for options to be evaluated and new ideas tested. As the
building was constructed, he will supervise construction daily and
modify “on site” many of the openings, including its proportion, size
and location
ELEMENT
14SAAD AHMED

9. our perception
Most of the interior walls were painted white. It was
for special areas of the building that intense colors
were used such as pink, yellow or orange. Barragan
found out an effect that can be described as
“colored light”. He usually hidden the light source
and then painted the glass, mixing “warm” light
with planes lit by “cold” light. The result was a
mixture that changed the indoor quality of space and
of color
15
ELEMENT
SAAD AHMED

10. His vision has inspired some of the best
known contemporary Mexican
architects including Ricardo Legorreta,
Andrea Casillas, and Enrique Norton of
TEN (Taller Enrique Norton) Arquitectos,
among others (Park et al., 2008).
Ricardo Legorreta is among the disciples
of Barragan who make use of his
sense of color, spatial composition,
and design vocabulary
PHILOSOPHY
SAAD AHMED

11. The 1966 Folke Egerstrom House and Stables built around a brightly
coloured, sculptural sequence of horse pools (Barragán loved
horse riding) and the 1975-77 Francisco Gilardi House framing an
indoor pool.
11
SAAD AHMED

12. From the above ,we can conclude the following principles and design
approach of Barragan when it comes to architecture:
*1* The application of critical regionalism ; the regional attitude toward
design, and by that we do not mean vernacular architecture or the
regional style , but taking the context as a main source of design.
*2* Color as a part of light: Barragan pays a large amount of the
attention to day lighting, natural light give spaces a different
character thought the day and in various times of the year. (
bioclimatic lessons)
*3* The technical domain of materials.
12
PHILOSOPHY
SAAD AHMED

13. *4* The ability of the architect to identify the
essential building elements and then to
" convent" them into a contemporary image.
*5* Landscaping as an essential part of the
project. the exterior space, patio or garden,
had a new connotation and use on Mexican
contemporary architecture. His concepts about
green space, terraces, porticoes, fountains and
many other outdoor elements had become a
major contribution to a more “natural”
approach to architecture.
13
SAAD AHMED

14. *6* Reframing: the studio house is Barragan's microcosmos, a place for
his introspective memory and a living body that grows and changes.
This kind of approach can be traced back from the work of Schon.
*7* The use of Elements and notions in order to create "emotional
architecture“.
14
SAAD AHMED

15. Dania Abdel-Aziz, DuaaAl-Maani 15
Barragan's studio house
SAAD AHMED

16. 16
Barragan's studio house
-Concept:
"A house is never finished; it is an organism in constant evolution".
Studio house of barragan in Tacubaya ( place where water comes together)
Luis kahn visited the house, and remarked that it was
not just a house:
IT IS THE HOUSE.
Luis Barragán’s house has no time. It could have been
built a hundred years ago or a hundred years from
now.” —Louis Kahn
SAAD AHMED

17. -Form :
The house is located on two adjacent lots
on a small street (12 and 14 General
Francisco Ramirez Street) in the Daniel
Garza suburb of Mexico City.
The total surface area is around 1,161 m2
17
SAAD AHMED

18. • The entrance is directly from the street on the east side. The garden opens
towards the west. The studio takes the northern part of the building, with
an entrance directly from the street; the rest is Barragán's private
residential quarters.
24SAAD AHMED

19. -Function:
There are three main types of functions can be recognized in this project:
- Pragmatic function: living rooms, saloons, entertainment room, kitchen,
dining room ,gallery, office space , bedrooms, studio and terrace.
The separate dining room is reached from the hall and the living room, next
to which there is a small breakfast room and the kitchen. All these spaces
open towards the garden.
On the first floor are the master bedroom and a guest room, as well as an
'afternoon room'.
On the second floor, there are service spaces and a roof terrace. The upper
storeys are accessed via narrow stairs without railings.
The levels of the different floors are not regularly placed, but are designed
so as to allow spaces of different heights. Thus, the living room is double
height.
19
SAAD AHMED

20. 1 garage
2vestibule
3-hall
4 Kitchen
5 Breakfast room
6Dining room
7-Living room
8-library
9 studio
10 vestibule
11Secretary’s office
12-Office
13 Patio
14 Reflecting pool
15 garden
Ground floor plan
20
SAAD AHMED

21. The upper floor is more private space with
thick wood shutters for the
windows. Access to this area and the roof
terrace is via stone stairs lacking railings, a
typical Barragán characteristic.
The upper floor contains a master bedroom
with dressing room, a guest room and an
“afternoon room.”[ The main bedroom
has a window facing the garden and was
where the architect slept, simply calling it
the “white room.” It contains a painting
called “Anunciación” as well as a thirty cm
tall folding screen with images of an
African model which were cut from
magazines.
21
Interior shot for the project
SAAD AHMED

22. The dressing room attached to the bedroom is
also called the “cuarto del Cristo” or Christ
room, with its crucifix. The guest room faces
east onto the street and originally was a
terrace. This and the bedrooms have a
monastic feel because of their sparseness and
type of furniture, reflecting the Franciscan
beliefs of BarragánThe north side of the
property is reserved for the studio with direct
access from the street. There is also internal
access from the living room. The main studio
space is linked with the garden through a
patio. On the street side, there are two small
offices, and on the first floor there is a small
private office.
Section drawing, conceptualsection
22
SAAD AHMED

23. - Cultural and Contextual function: the building’s form is a response to
its physical setting and climate; WORLD HERITAGE….
Barragán called himself a landscape architect;
"I believe that architects should design gardens to be used, as
much as the houses they build, to develop a sense of beauty and thetaste
and inclination toward the fine arts and other spiritual values."
30SAAD AHMED

24. -facades:
The entrance facade aligns with the street and
preserves the appearance of the neighbouring
facades. It is a massive boundary with precise
openings.
All the windows of the eastern facade represent the
possibility of hiding the direct communication
between domestic space and the city. The entire
exterior conserves the color and natural
roughness of the plastered concrete.
The facades of the house align with the street and
are very plain, with rough cement walls very
similar in color and composition of its neighbors.
24
Symbolic function: The building conveys symbolically the sensation of
simplicity, a dry climate and a little of ambiguity.
SAAD AHMED

25. Since the facade is plain and flat, there is no way to guess the layout
inside. Instead, the house focuses inward, centered on a garden, which
itself is surrounded by high walls except on the west. The house has been
compared to an oasis with high walls to keep out the “urban chaos.
elevations, and openings
Dania Abdel-Aziz, DuaaAl-Maani 25
SAAD AHMED

26. 34
Among Barragan’s work, his own house and studio
stands out for its interplay of abstract planes and
bold masses. Its colorful walls provide internal
rooms and patios with pleasant filtered light.. By
the use of large wall.
surfaces one can also obtain spaces with varying
luminosity, which creates an ambience more
comfortable and intimate.’’ (Park et al., 2008)
By reducing artificial lighting to a minimum, his
attitude that artificial light was not to substitute
daylighting, but convey spaces a sense of mystery,
intimacy, enclosure and relaxation. Those
emotions were accomplished by lowering and
controlling the direction of light sources

27. -Materiality:
"Architecture, like its great teacher, nature, should choose and apply
its material according to the laws conditioned by nature, yet should it
not also make the form and character of its creations dependent on
the ideas embodied in them and not on the material. If the most
suitable material is selected for their embodiment, the ideal
expression of a building will of course gain in beauty and meaning by
the material’s appearance as a natural symbol ... Let the material
speak for itself; let it step forth undisguised in the shape and
proportions found most suitable by experience and science. Brick
should appear as brick, wood as wood, iron as iron, each according
to its own statical laws". Semper, Gottfried.
The house is built from concrete with a plaster rendering,
due to the use of this material there are no irrelevant
ornaments to distract the eye of the visitor, also color is
an essential part of materiality in Barragan'sdesigns.
27
SAAD AHMED

28. -Color:
"The eye does not see form, but what the eye sees is color". –Aristotle
"Color is the most sacred element of all visible things". – Ruskin
We can interpret the use of color and color temperature as the following:
1. Francis bacon says that the shadow in paintings is due to its escape from
the body.
2. Deleuze analyzing bacon's Scream remarks that it is the entire body that
escapes through the mouth.
28
SAAD AHMED

29. CHAPEL OF THE CAPUCHINAS
the famous Chapel and Convent of the Capuchinas Sacramentarias, a masterpiece
by the most renowned Mexican architect Luis Barragán .
SAAD AHMED

30. Details of the pool and
the reflection of the
lattice.
Deeply religious, the master filled his works with
peacefulness and serenity, using a clearly Mexican
formal vocabulary, the expressive tectonic nature
of the materials, the sublime use of light and an
elaborated yet simple treatment of space.
Layout of the complex,
SAAD AHMED

31. To carry out the work, which lasted 7 years to complete, the architect
dedicated much enthusiasm and passion to define the many details that
compose the building.
SAAD AHMED

32. Upon entering, a small semi sunken courtyard, with
white walls, in one of which a monumental cross is
embedded.
As a counterpart, a serene pool, in whose
waters white flowers float, gives human scale
to the space.
To the right, a yellow frame lattice
accompanies a stairway leading to a
secondary chapel
The simple but powerful detail and color of
the yellow grid reflecting on the black-stone
pond is simply overwhelming.
SAAD AHMED

33. At the other end of the pool is the entrance to
the chapel, which can be accessed after a
short climb up stone steps.
A long single wooden bench seems to float
perpendicularly to the wall, but is actually held
by invisible metal brackets.
Details of the "floating"
bench adjacent to the
wooden wall.
SAAD AHMED

34. The light passing through a yellow
glass located on the extreme of the
choir floods the space turning it of
a caramel-color and reveals an
austere chapel with hardwood
floors and with rough textured
walls of vivid ocher tones.
the color of the wall causes the light
to produce shades that suggest
feelings of peacefulness and
serenity.
To the side, a freestanding cross receives
lateral illumination.
SAAD AHMED

35. The effect is dramatic, due to a triangular wedge that is embedded in
space (see the plant layout).
"Tadao Ando was here" he says the sister proudly "and he was amazed by this effect of
the light."Tadao Ando, Frank Gehry and Rem Koolhaas among other famous architects
have been fascinated and influenced by the mastery of Barragán’s works.
SAAD AHMED

36. To the right, separated by a white wooden
lattice-shaped grid, is a side chapel that is
often used by families of the nuns.
View of the side chapel.
the hallway next to the pool, separated by the
yellow lattice and with the bench that seems
to be levitating. SAAD AHMED