In Search of the Photographic Architecture of Luis Barragán

Primeros Muros
Functionalism
Signature

2022
Research project
Architectural Association

Luis Barragán (1902-1988) was a Mexican architect, active between the mid-1920s and late 1980s. His work became known internationally after being displayed in a photo-slide exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MoMA) titled “The Architecture of Luis Barragán”¹, directed by Emilio Ambasz in 1976; and soon after in 1980 for being the second laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize². His architectural practice can be studied in three distinct periods. First, what Juan Palomar calls his primeros muros³ or first walls stage between 1927 and 1935, which is here studied through a 1935 article in the Architectural Review (New York). Second, the rationalist stage between 1936 and 1940, studied through the first and second issues of Arquitectura y Decoración (México); and finally, the Signature Architecture period between 1940 to 1976, studied through the August 1951 issue of Arts & Architecture (Los Ángeles).

The chronological division presented here has been continually accepted in lectures and publications regarding the architecture of Luis Barragán.⁴ It is a logical taxonomy that encapsulates the clear succession of architectural languages and approaches seen in the work of Barragán, while also reflecting important turns of events in his personal life, which would reflect in the material qualities of his work and its photographic portrayal.

In an attempt to answer the course’s questions “is architecture defined by photographs” and if so “when did architects start designing for photographs?” this essay will explore the photographic depiction of the work of Barragán in its different stages using three corresponding journal articles as case studies. It will be stated that his involvement in real estate development and speculation were important elements for the conception of his earlier work in Guadalajara and the canonical work of the Casa Estudio. The prior will be demonstrated through a comparison of the photographs taken by Roberto Salcedo Magaña in the early 1930s and by Armando Salas Portugal in 1950. I will attempt to establish a relationship between the work of Salcedo Magaña to the last stage of Barragán’s career. In that sense, Signature Barragán Architecture is said to be designed from a synthesis first obtained from a photographic image and built to replicate that synthesis, as an observable architectural characteristic.

For this essay to help understand the role of architectural photography in the perception of the built environment, as well as its production and historiography, the photographs, texts, and even the context of each journal and magazine has to be taken into consideration altogether as a unit. Removing them from their context and analyzing them as detached illustrations is counterproductive for the argument here established. Different elements within the journals as a whole can be traced and compared with known historical facts in order to contribute to a broader understanding, in this case, of the architecture of Luis Barragán, the Mexican architectural, cultural, and political scene of the 1950s and the overlapping histories of modernity as represented in print publications.

From left to right: Journal covers. The Architectural Record (1931), Arquitectura y Decoración (1937) and Arts & Architecture (1951).

Three stages of the work of Luis Barragán, Architect

Stage 1. Primero, los Primeros Muros
Guadalajara, Jalisco. 1924.

Luis Ramiro, the third son of the Barragán Morfín family graduates from the Escuela Libre de Ingenieros. His father, the Licenciado Barragán, owns the Hacienda de Corrales, or Corrales Estate, in Manzanilla de la Paz, Jalisco, a town located 115 kilometers away from the city. The agricultural business of the haciendas is suffering a series of transformations after the supposed end of the Revolutionary War¹ but continues with its operations. Even though it’s still a thriving endeavor, it soon will come to an end, and the “extensive land ownership”² of the Barragáns, along with their fortune, will cease to exist in 1936. At this moment, however, the family still holds a comfortable position in the tapatío³ society and most relevantly in the economic environment of central Mexico. It is therefore natural for the Licenciado to celebrate his son becoming an engineer, and rewards young Luis with a long trip to Europe to “complement his experiences and give him a vision of the old world”.⁴ He is now the second professional engineer in the family after his older brother Juan José. Luis will soon leave for the Veracruz port, passing through Mexico City for the first time on his way to a France-bound ship. His future, both personal and professional, awaits expectantly.

Back home from Europe, after some small appointments, the young Luis Barragán received his first formal commission in 1927. He was consigned by Mr. Robles de León for the remodeling of his house in the Parroquia neighborhood of Guadalajara. This was a house built at the beginning of the century that followed the norms of the typical Mexican houses: a zagúan or hallway at the entrance, a central patio with rooms surrounding, and a second patio on the rooftop for the service and domestic tasks. In essence, Barragán re-directed the light that entered the house in various ways. For the first time, he exploited the ideas he had been processing since his European trip, particularly those from Ferdinand Bac’s Jardins Enchantés. He would further explore these ideas on the following commissions, which are better known and very well documented. These are the houses for Efraín González Luna (1928),for Gustavo R. Cristo (1929) and for Enrique Aguilar (1931).

A few years later, in the early 1930s Juan José, Luis’ older brother, was awarded the construction of a new park in the Escobedo Gardens, a piece of land neighboring the Escobedo Penitentiary in central Guadalajara. The Penitentiary comprised an area of about 8 blocks. Due to its closeness to the Metropolitan Cathedral, it was an obstacle to the development of the western side of the city. Therefore, the prison began being deconstructed in 1911 and was definitely demolished in 1933.⁵ The land was freed for investors to develop housing and infrastructure. Juan José Barragán decided to take charge of the construction works of the Park and partnered with his architect brother, leaving him in charge of the architectural project. In 1934, Barragán would also design and construct three houses in a block surrounding the park. One was built for an unknown client⁶, a second, for Mr. and Mrs. the Harper de Garibi, and the third, for a rental house for his first client, Mr. Robles de León.

Kiosk in the González Luna House in Guadalajara, published under " Carpeta de Arquitectura Mejicana" or "Mexican Architecture Portfolio" in Nuestra Arquitectura (Buenos Aires, 1932). This feature also shows the projects and photographs of the house for Mr. Gustavo R. Cristo and for Mr. Enrique Aguilar. Also published in The Architectural Record (September 1931) and House & Garden (October 1931).

Four spreads from the 1935 issue of The Architectural Record featuring the Parque de la Revolución. Photographs by Roberto Salcedo Magaña.

The Parque de la Revolución was featured in a 1935 edition of the Architectural Record in a Portfolio of Special Building Types, and then again in a special edition titled "The New Architecture in México" in April of 1937.⁷ The photographs of the 1935 issue are credited to Roberto Salcedo Magaña, a young draftsman that produced drawings for architectural projects, topographic studies, and details of machinery.⁸ Salcedo Magaña shared an office on Corona Street with Juan José Barragán, making him a comfortable choice for illustrating the Park.

In her recent study of the photographers of tapatíomodern architecture, Dr. Claudia Rueda Velázquez makes an interesting note that shines a light on two issues encountered in the research done in anticipation of this essay.⁹ First, the lack of architectural photographers in Guadalajara before the foundation of the School of Architecture of the Guadalajara University in 1948.¹⁰ It was only after its first generations started to graduate that the alumni became specialized photographers or architect-photographers. Before the foundation of the School of Architecture, it can be presumed that architectural photography was more a hobby or secondary profession than a full-time occupation for anyone in Guadalajara.

This fact makes the case of Roberto Salcedo Magaña more interesting, especially because his work has been hard to track down. Most publications of the time would credit photographers in a list of contributors on the first pages of the issue, making the task of determining the authorship of each photographic image quite complicated, especially without an archive of the work of such photographers. In the case of Salcedo Magaña, being an amateur photographer also makes him less available as a historical figure, even when his images illustrate relevant buildings of early Mexican Modernity in publications such as the Architectural Review and Domus.¹¹

The photographs by Salcedo in the 1935 AR issue depict the Parque de la Revolución in a refreshing way. Despite his lack of professional training, he had a photographic sense that allowed him to present architectural compositions enhancing geometry and light. His images are an attempt at the new vision style, and he had a good grasp of this approach, but the Parque de la Revolución deemed it challenging to produce interesting details. Conversely, Barragán’s domestic works marked a great opportunity for him to create impactful photographs that were by themselves very appealing, and, at the same time, he documented the architectural projects in a way that successfully communicated the architectural features that a journal cares to see.

For the January 1935 edition, a few months earlier than the Parque de la Revolución was published, 16 of Salcedo Magaña’s photographs were published under the title “Recent Work of a Mexican Architect- Luis Barragan”. The article featured images of two houses around Parque de la Revolución, the Rental House for Mr. Robles de León and the Harper de Garibi’s, along with the remodeling of Barragán’s family house in the Chapala Lake.^{12

Page 27 of Domus, August 1937 featuring the Chapala, Harper de
Garibi and Robles de León houses. Photographs by Roberto Salcedo Magaña.
Courtesy of the RIBA Library.

Spread of The Architectural
Review, vol. 77. January 1935. Photographs by Roberto Salcedo Magaña.}After studying the publication of the Parque de la Revolución and the Recent Works together, it’s notable that Barragán was attempting to integrate ideas from his first voyage to Europe, which were further consolidated in a second trip in 1931, after the death of his father. On the second trip, Barragán passed through New York for a few days, and then made his way to France where he finally met Ferdinand Bac, a key reference for his past endeavors as a young architect. He apparently also met Corbusier and attended a couple of lectures.¹³

An additional result of his trip to Europe could have been the decision to keep Salcedo Magaña as his photographer. Each of his frames is carefully composed, showing very specific geometries at the exact moment of the day when the light is strong enough to produce the desired shadows. Salcedo Magaña’s interest in the photography of the new vision, which originated in Germany, is palpable in the images included in the January of 1935 issue of the Architectural Record. On his side, Barragán was probably trying to reconcile functionalism and his interest in something that may be called “the ethics of the rancher and the aesthetic of the rural”. “Before any given architectural problem, he would ask himself ¿cómo lo haría un ranchero?” that is, “how would a rancher do this?”. According to Palomar, Barragán:

“Was referring to the traditional collection of wisdom that can be found in the rural constructions of diverse latitudes, where it is necessary to resolve constructive problems with physical soundness, efficiency, and natural beauty.”¹⁴^{Spread
of The Architectural Review, vol.
77. January 1935. Photographs by Roberto
Salcedo Magaña.

Spread of The Architectural
Review, vol. 77. January 1935. Photographs by Roberto Salcedo Magaña.} Arguably, the beauty Barragán was interested in obtaining through architecture was more intricately linked with the relation of space and nature, or of architecture and its context. This reveals the reasons behind the first layout of the feature, showing the Chapala house. First, an image of the facade taken from the south, with the low neighboring house to its right, and a man wearing a sombrero walking in front. Second, a photograph taken from the north, where the south corner of the neighboring house is included, but, more importantly, the two towers of the San Francisco parish can be observed in close proximity, encapsulating the traditional context of this small Mexican town through different elements. I believe the true relevance this house had for Barragán was probably the direct relation it had to the town and the Lake. After all, Barragán was trained as a civil engineer and specialized in hydraulics. Water was always important as an element of architecture and landscaping, and would hold a privileged place later in his life. At this point, however, the best he could do was to remodel the rooftop of the family house near a lake to hint at his interest in the element.

In parallel, the Harper de Garibi and Robles de León houses seem to be isolated from an urban context too, despite being in the center of Guadalajara. The high-contrast images show an intense and empty sky and clear walls, probably achieved by the use of a filter to enhance the contrast. This allows Salcedo Magaña to create images of the open-air stairs and empty door-frames on top, which could suggest that the architectural elements are detached, almost sculptural volumes. The photographs, in the new vision style of Salcedo Magaña, focus on details of volumes and light. Only the facades and the images of the staircases (also published in Domus) share hints of the functionalist approach of the time. These photographs are probably suggested by the architect, who needed to communicate the transitional elements of his design. For these shots, the photographer possibly had to go through previous attempts in different angles (speculatively not different cameras, being that he was not a professional photographer) and decided on one that presented the second flight of stairs connecting to the rooftop more clearly.

The Chapala, Harper de Garibi, and Robles de León houses, especially seen through the lens of Salcedo Magaña in the Architectural Review, are refreshing views of Barragán ’s early work. The architect and the photographer are building, altogether, an image of a building that doesn’t exist entirely as the physical construction nor as the photographic image. Barragán will use the ideas derived from Salcedo’s work to feed his later ventures, after going through an interesting and speculative phase outside of his native Jalisco.

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1 See Emilio Ambasz, The Architecture of Luis Barragán (New York : Boston: Museum of Modern Art ; distributed by New York Graphic Society, 1976).

2 The first laureate of the prize given by the Hyatt Foundation was Phillip Johnson in 1979. Barragán is, to this day, the only Mexican architect to have been awarded the Pritzker Medal. Another point of contact between the Pritzker Prize and Mexico was the 1991 award ceremony held in the Palacio de Iturbide, a colonial palace in central Mexico City, where Robert Venturi received his own medal. See “Laureates' ' in the Pritzker Architecture Prize website. https://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates (last consulted on January 2nd, 2023)

3 Juan Palomar Verea (1956) is a Mexican architect, writer and teacher in the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente in Guadalajara, Jalisco. He collaborated with Alberto Kalach in the Vasconcelos Library from 2000-2007. Palomar has been a devoted scholar of the architecture of Luis Barragán and presided the Fundación de Arquitectura Tapatía Luis Barragán (1988-2001). He recently published an anthology of texts that builds on the personal and professional life of Barragán in a refreshing, poetic prose. See Juan Palomar, ‘Barragán por Palomar’, Diego Orduño ed. (Guadalajara: Artlecta, Impronta Casa Editora, 2022).

4 The current state of Barragán’s known ouvre is based on the 1995 book “Barragán: Obra Completa”, or its 1996 english edition “Barragán: The Complete Works” which features texts by Alvaro Siza, Antonio Toca Fernández, Juan Palomar Verea and Luis Barragán himself. It was the first publication to “encompass the architect ’s entire range of works and projects”. See Editor ’s Note in “Barragán: The Complete Works”, Raul Rispa, ed. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1996) 5.

1 James D. Cockcroft, Precursores intelectuales de la revolución mexicana, 1900-1913, 23a ed (México: Siglo Veintiuno, 2002).

2   “Chronology” Barragan Foundation, accessed January 2nd, 2022. https://www.barragan-foundation.org/luis-barragan/chronology

3        Tapatío is the demonym of Guadalajara, Jalisco. It is used to refer to anything related to Guadalajara and the Jalisco Highland region. It comes from the nahuatl “tlapatiyōtl”, the monetary unit used in the region before the Spanish invasion.

4    Palomar, Juan, ‘Barragán por Palomar’, 39.

5 CMS, “La Guadalajara Que Se Fue,” El Informador, Noticias de Jalisco (El Informador, October 6, 2017), https://www.informador.mx/cultura/La-Guadalajara- que-se-fue-20171005-0133.html.

6    Presumably, this house might have been a rental for Barragán himself.

7 Park of the Revolution in The New Architecture in Mexico, Abril 1937. 40-41.

8    Claudia Rueda Velázquez, ‘Fotógrafos de La Arquitectura Moderna Tapatía’, Bitácora Arquitectura, no. 41 (13 September 2019): 38, https://doi. org/10.22201/fa.14058901p.2019.41.70673.

9    Rueda Velázquez, ‘Fotógrafos de La Arquitectura Moderna Tapatía’. 40.

10    Fernando González Gortázar, La fundación de un sueño: la Escuela de Arquitectura de Guadalajara, (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1995) 144.

11    In these publications, for example, his name is mentioned in a note, and repeated in a couple more pictures, making the authorship of the remaining images an ambiguous fact.

12    Remodeled in collaboration with Juan Palomar Arias.

13 Palomar, Juan, ‘Barragán por Palomar’. 48-49.

14 Ibid., 424.

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