Patricia O’Leary’s article “Barragan Homage to Albers” refers to Luis Barragan’s architectural style, enriched over the years through influences from painters from the architect’s close proximity. O’Leary mentions Jesus Reyes or Raul Ferrera as two Mexican painters that are known for inspiring Barragan’s use of color in architecture. However, the article mostly focuses on the impact that the painting of the German painter, Josef Albers, had on Barragan’s use of color in architecture.
The writing focuses on Barragan’s shifts from the modest and discrete use of color prior to his friendship with Albers to adopting an intense utilization of the bright colors and later on, using adjacent hues to create tridimensional or cubist compositions (O’Leary 117 – 118). There are mentioned specific projects wherein Barragan’s use of color in architecture has marked these shifts. Before encountering Albers and other painters who shaped his use of color in architecture, Barragan’s style was influenced by Mexico’s landscape, employing earth tones and brilliant colors, creating a high contrast. Later, his interaction with the Reyes and Ferrera marked Barragan’s transition to colorist backgrounds inspired from Mexican culture and spirituality, making the architect recognized for “developing the ingredients of national architecture” (O’Leary 115). The encounter with Albers, however, saw Barragan’s adjustment to “an extensive palette of hues”, as the Mexican artist became bolder in the adoption of more expressive colors.
The article shows that although he was not a Mexican painter, Albers incorporated the Mexican tradition and culture into his work, for creating a complex and elaborated based on colors specific to Mexico’s cultural heritage. Albers’ knowledgeable use of contiguous colors was reflected in Barragan’s architecture based on hue adjacencies, visible in Satellite City Towers or his own house. However, the writing informs that these architectural projects marked Barragan’s passage from high contrasting colors to hue adjacencies due to his conversations about color with Albers (O’Leary 116).
The Mexican architect continued to explore Albers’ coloristic style in his projects, which implied the insertion of transparent configurations, framed by colored shapes, wherein the transparent area would change its hue, overlapping the hues of the other shapes. This painting technique is visible in Barragan’s San Cristobal Stable, Pools and House in Los Clubes, designed in 1967 (O’Leary 117).
The hue adjacencies is further explored in Barragan’s work, as Albers expands the notion and effects of this technique for reaching color intersections. Color intersection implies selecting a color from the color wheel and using the colors next to the selected one that are similar with the initially chosen color, creating a visual illusion of reversed placement (O’Leary 118). Barragan achieves this effect in Chapel of Tlalpan, where he uses orange – yellow hues for amplifying the architecture design. An important element in the use of color in Barragan’s architecture is the natural daylight that creates dramatic effects (O’Leary 118).
Further on, the article discusses about the opaque color mixture that produces the illusion of transparency, which was integrated in Barragan’s Casa Giliardi project, where Albers coloristic ideas where applied in the dining room. This space mingles the blue sky color of the walls with a blue green color of the water, both traveled by a strip of light that create a subtle effect of walls changing color. The space centers a vivid red wall, composing a seven hue palette of colors (O’Leary 119).
Patricia O’Leary’s article “Barragan’s Homage to Albers” indicates that Barragan’s architectural incorporation of color evolved as Albers’ painting technique increased in sophistication and intellectual endeavor. The writing states that the close friendship relationship between the two artists allowed Barragan to absorb Albers’ ideas about the use of color that provided him valuable insights for mixing color in his architecture. The adjacent colors effect is visible nowadays in exterior and inner designs, such as in Casa Gavion, Mexico, an ensemble of spaces designed by the architectural studio ColectivoMX (e-architect “Casa Gavion”). The adjacent hue and color intersection effects are well elaborated in the outer space that combines a grey white unsymmetrical stair with a light blue wall on its left and another wall, colored in dark blue, framing the stair at its top end. This color mix of adjacent colors (dark blue, light blue and grey white) continues Barragan’s work in architecture and Albers personalized painting technique.
Works Cited
e-architect. Casa Gavion, Mexico: San Jose del Cabo House. [Online] 24 February 2012. Available from http://www.e-architect.co.uk/mexico/casa-gavion-san-jose-del-cabo. 15 April 2016.
O’Leary, Patricia. “Barragan’s Homage to Albers”. History of Criticism. 83rd ACSA Annual Meeting. 1995. Print.
