Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/845163
BARRAGÁN BECAME AN INTERNATIONAL CELEBRITY AT THE AGE OF 78, WHEN HE WON THE SECOND PRITZKER ARCHITECTURE PRIZE EVER GIVEN. 51 Capilla de las Capuchinas, Mexico City, 1953-1960 El Bebedero, Las Arborledas, Mexico City, 1959-1962 (1953-1960), where he donated not only his architectural services but also the cost of construction and the furnishings. The single-family houses and apartment buildings he built in the neighborhoods around Chapultepec Park in Mexico City, starting in 1935, document his transition from romantic historicism to Corbusian white abstraction and on to the surreal minimalism punctuated by intense colors that would become his architectural signature. His double life as an architect and a developer would peak at the Pedregal de San Ángel, one of the most successful real estate ventures in Mexican history, as well as a masterpiece of landscape urbanism. In the years following World War II, Barragán transformed a desolate lava field next to the then-new National University campus (Ciudad Universitaria) into an exclusive neighborhood that combined financial savvy with design excellence. Some of the best-known images of Barragán's work, such as the surreal Pedregal gardens and the reflecting horse trough in Las Arboledas, are essentially entry markers and amenities for his suburban developments. At the Pedregal de San Ángel, Barragán built the elegant Casa Prieto López (1950), Casa Barragán, Mexico City, 1947-1948, main living room. To the right, a Josef Albers painting. Casa Barragán's roof deck Luis Barragán