Luis Barragán: His Library opens the book collection kept at Barragán's home-studio in Mexico City, reading the volumes he owned, marked and shared as a portrait of the architect's inner life.
About This Book
Barragán's house in Tacubaya—now the Casa Luis Barragán museum—is among the most studied houses of the 20th century, yet the library at its heart has rarely been examined on its own terms. This volume does exactly that. Rather than surveying the buildings, it traces the writers, ideas and friendships that fed Barragán's thinking, treating his books as a working archive of his interests in art, faith, landscape and the modern world. Barragán read closely and gave books as gestures of friendship, and the collection reflects the values of silence, solitude and serenity that run through his architecture. Essays by Alfonso Alfaro, Jorge Esquinca and Sarah Alexandra Obregón Davis are paired with a photographic essay by David Jiménez, whose quiet, light-filled images show the rooms where Mexican tradition and international modernism met.
Key Features
- A close study of the personal library held at Casa Luis Barragán in Mexico City
- Essays by Alfonso Alfaro, Jorge Esquinca and Sarah Alexandra Obregón Davis
- A photographic essay by David Jiménez on the house's light, shadow and stillness
- Produced with the Fundación de Arquitectura Tapatía Luis Barragán and Casa Luis Barragán
- Richly illustrated in colour, with a small number of black-and-white images
What You'll Discover
- Which authors, books and ideas shaped the thinking of the 1980 Pritzker Prize laureate
- How Barragán used books as bonds with friends, collaborators and kindred spirits
- The links between his reading and the qualities of silence and serenity in his buildings
- The library as a lens on the meeting of Mexican tradition and modernism in his work
About the Author
Luis Barragán (1902–1988) was born in Guadalajara and spent most of his working life in Mexico City. Trained as an engineer, he became the defining figure of modern Mexican architecture, holding modernist principles in tension with the forms, colours and materials of Mexican building. This volume brings together essayists Alfonso Alfaro, Jorge Esquinca and Sarah Alexandra Obregón Davis with photographer David Jiménez.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Dimensions: 229 × 324 mm
- Pages: 192
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9788410290655
- Publisher: Editorial RM
Perfect For: Architects, students and admirers of Luis Barragán, readers curious about how an architect's reading shapes design, and collectors of monographs on Mexican modernism.