Archinect - News

New documentary follows an artist's quest to access the archives of revered Mexican architect Luis Barragán

2019-05-01T16:15:00-04:00

A new documentary, to be shown at the IFC Center later this month, follows artist Jill Magid's bizarre journey to accessing the archives of revered Mexican architect Luis Barragán. Titled "The Proposal," the film is that last chapter in her project—The Barragán Archives—that started back in 2013, when Magid began her efforts to photograph his works.

Barragán's one-of-a-kind archive is owned by the Swiss furniture company Vitra, whose tight grip on the materials hampered Magid's efforts—so much so, that the artist even exhumed some of Barragán's ashes, famously pressing them into a two-carat diamond in the hopes it could be used in exchange for access to the vault.

This episode, along with the myriad of other events and procedures that went into trying to get access to Barrágan's archives, have been meticulously documented and chronicled in her new film The Proposal. Information on upcoming screenings can be found here. You can watch a trailer for the film below.

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Luis Barragan’s Casa Gilardi hosts a body-bending dance troupe

2018-04-25T18:48:00-04:00

Luis Barragan’s Casa Gilardi is considered one of the most internationally transcendent works of contemporary architecture. His last project before passing, the house shows off the legendary Mexican architect's exemplary use of geometry and eye-popping color. In this new video for the design video channel Nowness, the home acts as the perfect stage for hosting a body-bending dance troupe that twists and moves through the building’s vibrant spaces and rooms.

Explaining his interest with Barragan’s architecture, Director Andres Arochi said: “I wanted to play around with and explore the architect’s design. He knew exactly when and where people stand, and how the combination of light and space makes them feel. When we began shooting, magic started to happen. Light burst in through the window, and the dancer’s bodies started to flow in a way I had not anticipated.”

Watch the full video below.

The unusual tale of how Luis Barragán became a diamond

2016-07-26T15:28:00-04:00

Magid agrees with those who argue that the Barragán archive should be open to the public and returned to Mexico, but she insists that this is not her focus. “If that’s what my intentions were, I don’t think I’d make art,” she told me. “I’ve always called the archive her lover. To marry one man, she negotiated owning another man, whom she’s devoted her life to. It’s a weird love triangle, and I’m the other woman.”

“‘It intrigued me as a gothic love story,’ [Magid] said, ‘with a copyright-and-intellectual-property-rights subplot.’”

A fascinating story about “architectural preservation” that focuses on an artist's elaborate negotiation to open Luis Barragán's tightly controlled archive to the public in his native Mexico — and the unusual “love triangle” behind it. The story begins with conceptual artist Jill Magid, whose work questions the boundaries of institutional power and law. In her latest performance art piece, Magid had Barragán's ashes compressed into a 2.02 carat diamond, which was transformed into an engagement ring for architectural historian Federica Zanco. Magid would then “propose” to Zanco in exchange for Barragán's entire archive.

Zanco first received the archive as a gift from a Swiss businessman who purchased it and the copyrights for $3 million in 1995, in lieu of an engagement ring. Since then, everyone from architects to students to museum staff members have been denied acc...

The chromatic feats...

2014-07-21T12:00:00-04:00

Some obvious reasons are deducible from the graphic elegance of his structures and their seductive saturated “Mexican” colors. Perhaps, though, new generations are also drawn by instinct to the deep humanism expressed in the work of this undervalued genius, a man who cited as his personal pole stars ideals like amazement, enchantment, serenity, silence and intimacy.

Back in June, Guy Trebay penned a essay 'Finding Mexico City, and Luis Barragán, Again'. Therein, he relates how after a long absence from Mexico City, he was inspired to rediscover both the city and the houses of the great Mexican architect.

He also draws attention to the fact that many of these houses lack official landmark protection, including two of the most important, which are leaving the possession of the families that commissioned them.

Previously Archinect new items on Barragán; here and here

Luis Barragán Homage Tweaks Vitra, the Copyright Owners

2013-11-04T12:16:00-05:00

After passing to the widow of Barragán’s business partner, it was sold in 1994 to a wealthy Swiss couple, Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman of Vitra, the international furniture company and design museum, and the woman who was to become his wife, Federica Zanco, an architectural scholar. In the years since, Ms. Zanco has devoted her life to promoting Barragán’s legacy. But her determination to keep the archive at Vitra headquarters near Basel has rankled many in Mexico...