The photographic works in »Modern Barragán«, the book by the multidisciplinary Mexican women artists’ duo Lake Verea, go far beyond a classic architectural documentation. The 240-page publication by Hatje Cantz brings together photographic and essayistic works that have emerged from an almost two-decade engagement with the oeuvre of the Mexican architect Luis Barragán. Since 2006, the artists Francisca Rivero-Lake Cortina and Carla Verea Hernández have repeatedly visited Barragán’s house and studio in Mexico City—an iconic site of modern architecture—in an attempt to approach the architect through his spaces in their own way.
Modern Barragán by Lake Verea presents itself as a personal homage to Luis Barragán (1902–1988), a Pritzker Prize laureate and one of the most significant architects of the twentieth century. The Mexican architect became known for his reduced yet poetic architecture, in which light, color, water and landscape play central roles. His buildings combine modernist clarity with traditional Mexican elements, with his private residence and studio, Casa Barragán in Mexico City, standing as an exemplary example of his style. Today the house is open to the public as Museo Casa Luis Barragán and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004.
The photographs show the architecture of the building, which has been largely preserved in its original state and still retains numerous pieces of furniture, objects and materials from Barragán’s own time, along with its often unnoticed intimate details and traces of a lived life. During their stays at Casa Barragán, the artists’ duo engaged with the place deliberately on both a physical and emotional level: they »sat on his chairs, opened his closets, listened to the silence and kissed in the enchanted garden«, as the book states. In this way, an unusual perspective on Barragán’s work emerges—less analytical than experiential, almost performative.
Following an introductory reflection on the project itself, the book unfolds into several chapters and photographic series that illuminate different aspects of the house and its cultural context, opening up various approaches to Barragán’s architecture. The opening—The Staircase That Made Us Fall in Love with Him—already demonstrates how strongly individual architectural elements can become the starting point of a narrative. The iconic staircase—essentially a functional element within the house – is described as a sculptural experience that connects movement, body and space.
Another chapter pursues an almost biographical perspective: Portrait of the Architect Through His Cadillac. Here Barragán’s Cadillac from 1957 is read as a kind of time capsule, whose forms and materials offer clues to the architect’s personality, era and myth. The car appears as an extension of his character—elegant, monumental and full of symbolic meanings.
Further chapters focus on the concrete material and spatial details of the house. In His House with the Original Materials and Colors, attention is directed to surfaces, furniture and objects that still date back to Barragán’s own time. Through careful observation and photographic studies, an impression emerges of how strongly color, texture and materiality contribute to the overall experience of his architecture.
Particularly striking is the series Wild Nights, which explores the house in complete darkness. Here the artists photograph with flash or under moonlight and streetlight, transforming familiar rooms into unexpected, abstract-appearing image spaces. This method connects to their long-standing interest in light and perception. Atmospherically reinterpreted, the architecture appears beyond a purely documentary perspective. The photographs show the house during the day, at night, in moonlight or during a thunderstorm; in some cases the walls and floors are even rubbed with aluminum to reveal their textures.
It is a combination of personally shaped documentary research, artistic intervention and immediate experience that defines the project. What emerges is a multilayered approach to memory, perception and intimacy. The publication presents Barragán’s architecture as a historical masterpiece, but also as a living place that can be reread again and again—through the perspective of contemporary artists as well as through the experiences of visitors who allow themselves to truly enter this house. [Ed.]
Lake Verea: Modern Barragán
Edited by Lake Verea
240 pages, 210 mm x 250 mm
240 illustrations
hatjecantz.com
