1: First Book of Work for this Talented, Mexican-born Architect
From Preface:
"Mexican-born Luis Barragan is one of the landscape architecture's most refined and poetic practitioners. In the de Chirico-like settings he creates, the wall is both the supreme entity and the inhabitant of a larger metaphysical landscape, a screen for revealing the hidden colors of Mexico's almost white sun and a shield for suggesting never seen presences. His magnificent fountains and carefully constructed plazas seem to stand as great architectural stages for the promenade of mythological beings. While his design approach is classical and atemporal, the elements of his architecture are deeply rooted in his country's cultural and religious traditions. It is through the haunting beauty of his hieratic constructions that we have come to conceive of the passions of Mexico's architecture.
Although Barragan...has been justly admired through many magazine articles, this is the first book to be published on his work. The photographs that follow illustrate seven of Barragan's most accomplished projects, tracing the evolution and lyrical refinement of his work since the gardens of El Pedregal and his own house, which were among his first original architectural statements in the 40s. In addition, Barragan's oeuvre since 19274 - including early projects evidencing strong influences from the Mediterranean and Le Corbusier's architecture, as well as unrealized projects of the last decade - is detailed in a List of Works at the end of the book."
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