Casa Gilardi: Luis Barragán’s Final Project
Luis Barragan is Mexico’s most famous architect. Revered for his brilliant use of light and colors and how those influence spaces, particularly homes. Just in terms of those elements and the melding of outdoor and indoor spaces, I see similarities to Frank Lloyd Wright. But Barragan is a style of his own; one heavily influenced by Mexican history and its natural setting.
I finally experienced some of his work. A few blocks from my place is Casa Gilardi, Barragan’s last major project. The house, built by Barragan in 1976, is a private residence today. Fortunately, Martin Luque, one of the patrons who originally commissioned the house still owns and lives there with his wife. In fact, Martin’s son gave us the tour.
Despite its fame now, Casa Gilardi was a project that Barragan initially turned down. He was in retirement at the time and slowing down due to age and the beginning stages of Parkinson’s. But the two young advertising execs who commissioned the work were persistent. It turns out, Pancho Gilardi and Martin Luque wanted a stylish bachelor pad that would double as a studio and party house. But they were enamored with Barragan, who was revered in small circles but had not won the Pritzker yet and thus wasn’t too well known outside of Mexico. It would be in the last ten years of Barragan’s life that his reputation skyrocketed.
While the Jacaranda and its green, spindly leaves (they bloom, like the cherry blossom, in April and May) was left largely to its own devices, Barragan went to work on the rest of the space and created something extraordinary.
His keen sense of space and then the use of colors and natural lighting to enhance perceptions of that space is awe-inspiring at times. While building Casa Gilardi, Barragan would come every day between 11-12 to experience and envision the rays and reflections of day’s peak light.
One particular spot is the yellow hallway that leads with great visual intensity to the blue room containing an indoor pool. Barragan set it up for the natural light to reflect off yellow placements in the window panes. The opposite wall is not even painted in yellow. As you walk through the space you can’t help but feel this heightened anticipation for what’s next.
The picture doesn’t do justice, but as it moves from yellow to blue, there is this sensory experience of coming into water as you walk into this bright blue room with the small indoor pool. Again, the photo can’t capture this but the room also reveals the fun things Barragan can do with light and water. This quick 5-minute doc, including interview with Martin Luque, has some great shots of how light moves in this room.
From there you go up the stairs…
To a plush living room and two-tiered patio built around the tops of the Jacaranda. The living room is exactly as it was in 1976, replete with all of Barragan’s chosen furnishings. The artifacts include pre-Hispanic terracotta pottery and folk art animal figurines. Apparently, all of the terracotta bowls and dinner ware used at every great restaurant in the city is a trend inspired by Barragan’s heavy use of Mexican indigenous pottery well before it was popular to do so.
Back to the room…it even has a somewhat creepy Francisco Toledo designed piece.
Incredible house and gallery, and especially neat that it was shared with us by the original patron’s son, who grew up playing soccer around the Jacaranda..
It was a cool experience, and I’m already making plans to visit the other pieces in the collection, and learning more about Barragan in the process.
To visit Casa Gilardi, book in advance via email: casagilardi@gmail.com. The private tour as of now is 600 MXN.
