In Love with Luis

When I went to Mexico City in February, I not only fell in love with the city (the food, the people, the art), but I discovered and became somewhat obsessed with the architecture of Luis Barragán. Karla Martinez de Salas, the Editor-in-Chief of Vogue Mexico and an early TFI interview, mentioned if we went to his home, we should go a few streets away and knock on the door of 82 General Leon, a small, almost nondescript door. To our amazement, the owner opened the door and gave us a tour of the home Barragán built for her husband where they still live. While Casa Gilardi is small, it is quiet extraordinary; there is a pool in the dining room (see below). We also took a car to the outskirts of the city to Cuadra San Cristobal (top photo), a home Barragán built for an owner with horses, where the groundskeeper took us around. You cannot go in the home, but you don’t need to–the grounds are breathtaking (Vuitton used them recently in an ad.)

At first Barragán’s use of color seems most striking because you don’t see it anywhere else, except Mexico City where it is actually the norm. But it is the his attention to detail, down to the shadow play and light of each window, that is like few others. There are still more Barragán buildings–homes, chapels, we didn’t get to see; I will be going back. These photos are my own–the beauty of his places is so striking even an amateur photographer can’t go wrong.