Considered one of Luis Barragán’s most interesting masterpieces—an unlimited pink-walled hacienda on the outskirts of Mexico Metropolis—will from August turn into a centre for structure and artwork. La Cuadra San Cristobal will embody a everlasting exhibition concerning the life and work of Mexico’s best-known architect, plus gallery areas, artists’ studios, a library, reward store and café.
The mission is the brainchild of the Mexican architect Fernando Romero, who says Barragán (1902-88) was his greatest affect as a younger pupil. “My finest training was visiting Barragán’s work,” he says. “And now I hope this mission will imply we will share his extraordinary legacy much more broadly.”
The mission, seven years within the making, goals to marry structure and artwork in the identical method Barragán did in his lifetime. “It’s an echo of the connection he himself had with artists, together with Mathias Goeritz [with whom he designed the urban sculpture Torres de Satélite] and Dr Atl, who we name the Mexican Van Gogh,” Romero says. La Cuadra will embody an artist residency programme and momentary exhibitions.
Marina Abramović spurs launch
Mexico Metropolis Artwork Week in early February noticed La Cuadra’s inaugural creative collaboration, with Marina Abramović, who spent two days making a movie there, her first work in Mexico for the reason that Nineteen Nineties. An annual “artist expertise” will probably be an ongoing component of La Cuadra, and Abramović’s contribution included an intervention for invited company and a panel dialogue.
Marina Abramović intervention at La Cuadra Photograph: Fabian Martinez
Barragán, the foremost Mexican architect of the twentieth century, mixed custom and Modernism to supply buildings each of their second and timeless. Born in Guadalajara, he travelled extensively in Europe earlier than returning to Mexico Metropolis, the place he labored in new neighbourhoods together with Cuauhtémoc, Roma and Condesa earlier than transferring on to the work for which he’s finest recognized, Casa Luis Barragán, his residence for 4 a long time and now a museum and Unesco World Heritage website. Different masterpieces embrace his Capuchin Convent Chapel in Tlalpan, in addition to La Cuadra San Cristobal, which he designed within the late Sixties for the Egerström household, from whom the Fernando Romero Basis bought the property in 2024. The 30,000 sq. m website consists of the primary home, gardens, a plaza, swimming pool, stables and even a pool for the horses.
Abramović’s new movie entails horses, however the equestrian component is just one uniting issue between the efficiency artist and the architect. “Marina’s give attention to peace and ending violence connects her to Barragán, who like her had silence and humanity on the core of his work,” Romero says. “We couldn’t consider anybody higher than her for this mission.”
Exterior courtyard and stables at La Cuadra Photograph by Yannik Wegner.Courtesy of Fundación Fernando Romero.
For Romero, that is one other main landmark mission for Mexico Metropolis. He designed the Museo Soumaya, residence to greater than 66,000 works together with the biggest Rodin assortment outdoors France, and objects starting from pre-Hispanic items to European Renaissance works to work by the Mexican muralists. The museum opened in its present location in 2011, having been inbuilt tribute to Romero’s late mother-in-law Soumaya Domit, who was the spouse of enterprise magnate Carlos Slim, the richest individual in Latin America.
Romero’s studio can be behind initiatives together with El Salvador’s deliberate Bitcoin Metropolis and Aeropuerto Internacional del Pacifico.
The primary section of the reimagined La Cuadra will open in August, consisting of a everlasting exhibition specializing in Barragán’s life and together with maquettes and drawings. Romero says he hopes La Cuadra will turn into “a dynamic cultural hub that encourages new potentialities on the intersection of artwork and structure” and says that whereas no determine is being launched for the price of the mission, the ambition is that it’s going to break even inside seven to 10 years of opening.
La Cuadra San Cristobal is because of open absolutely in October
