Mexican Architect Luis Barragán's Casa Gilardi in CDMX

An architect of colour, Luis Barragán’s minimalist designs are among the most unforgettable and influential in Mexico City and abroad. Built with both Mexican tradition and modernist ideals in mind, a tour around these colourful sanctuaries is a must while in the capital for Mexico City Art Week (7–10 February 2024).

In 1975, advertising executives Francisco Gilardi and Martin Luque commissioned Barragán—then 80 years old—to design Casa Gilardi with the intention for it to be a private home and studio space. Having been inactive for almost 10 years, Barragán initially declined. When New York’s Museum of Modern Art honoured him with a retrospective later that year, however, and in need of new work for the show, he reconsidered. Casa Gilardi, in the capital’s Chapultepec neighbourhood, would be his last project.

Three stories worth of purple, pink, and white walls wrap the jacaranda tree within the central courtyard. Inside the house, small vertical windows running along the corridor have been painted yellow, flooding the space with strips of light, guiding you to the pool ahead.

Light and colour—inspired by paintings by Mexican artist Chucho Reyes Ferreira—are amplified by the limestone tiles mapping the house throughout.

In 1980, Barragán became the second winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. UNESCO added Casa Luis Barragán—his house and studio—to its World Heritage List in 2004.

Main image: Luis Barragán, Casa Gilardi, Mexico City (1975–1977). Photo: Annabel Downes, Ocula Advisory.