Architect of the intangible.

• Author: Underwood, Max
• Position: Luis Barragan

INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED among artists and intellectuals, Luis Barragan (1902-1988) is revered as one of the masters of contemporary Mexican architecture. Barragan dedicated himself to a lifelong search for an artistic expression that would embody the poetic richness of Mexico's past as well as address current aesthetic trends. Utilizing his extraordinary talents as a landscape architecture, interior designer, real estate developer, and city planner, he masterfully combined the intangible essences of architecture--intimate spaces, mystical light, sensuous materials, and arresting color--into a new aesthetic, an "emotional" architecture of poetry and mystery. In accepting the 1980 Pritzker Architecture Prize (the profession's equivalent of the Nobel Prize), Barragan remarked, "I have devoted myself to architecture as a sublime act of poetic imagination. Consequently, I am only a symbol for all those who have been touched by beauty. The words Beauty, Inspiration, Magic, Spellbound, Enchantment, as well as the concepts of Serenity, Silence, Intimacy and Amazement, all these have nestled in my soul. Though I am fully aware that I have not done them complete justice in my work, they have never ceased to be my guiding lights."

Luis Barragan Morfin was born in Guadalajara on March 9, 1902 to a well-to-do family, and spent the first eight years of his childhood, with five brothers and four sisters, in the capital of the state of Jalisco. At the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, his family moved to their large ranch, Hacienda de Corrales, near Mazamitla in Jalisco. During this period, the youthful Barragan began a personal process of discovery that would last throughout his artistic career. As he traveled on horseback surveying the day-to-day workings of the hacienda, he began to understand provincial Mexican life and was inspired by its physical beauty and spiritual richness. Later he recalled, "My architecture is autobiographical. Underlying all that I have achieved are the memories of my father's ranch were I spent my childhood and dolescence. In my work, I have always strived to adapt the magic of those remote nostalgic years to the needs of modern living. The lessons to be learned from the unassuming architecture of the village and provincial towns of my country have been a permanent source of inspiration."

With the end of the Mexican Revolution and the reconstruction programs of President Alvaro Obregon, Barragan's youthful dreams of becoming an hacendado (an hacienda owner) faded as the government debated major agrarian reforms. These reforms included the potential redistribution of large tracts of land held by private individuals throughout Mexico. In 1922, following his mother's encouragement to pursue a more secure vocation, Barragan began an apprenticeship under his brother, an engineer in Guadalajara, and enrolled in the Free School of Engineering. But while completing a rigorous technical degree in civil engineering, Barragan developed a passion for architecture. He read endlessly and had long discussions with his friends Rafael Unzua and Ignacio Diaz Morales. After graduating in 1924, he embarked on a grand architectural tour of France, Italy, Greece and Spain. During his travels, Barragan was profoundly influenced by the works of the French landscape architect, Ferdinand Bac in Les Colombiers, and by an inspirational visit to the serene gardens of Spain's Alhambra. His tour came to an abrupt halt when he was notified of his mother's death.

When Barragan returned to Mexico in 1925, the nationalistic movement which had swept the artistic and intellectual circles during the period of...