Gardens of Mexico

Although the trip concentrated on work by Luis Barragán, other gardens and designers are also included. This is not an exhaustive study of all the gardens of Mexico, but concentrates around Mexico City and areas a few hundred kilometers north of the city.
photo of Luis Barragan

Luis Barragán was principally a property developer but he had strong ideas about the design of houses and gardens. He was active mainly between 1940 and 1960 but didn't design many properties himself. Instead he implemented a building code for areas he was developing. The code banned many traditional and conventional design habits; it required minimum plot sizes of about a hectare, of which only 10% could be built on. It limited the amount of glass that could be used and only allowed locally-sourced materials. And there should be no high walls. Although well-intentioned, many of these rules were subsequently broken as the original plots were sub-divided and built on. Thus what we see today is frequently not what Barragán originally conceived. Nevertheless, enough remains to get a good idea of his intent and aesthetic. He was also influential on the subsequent generation of architects, which comes through particularly in the boldness of structure and choice of striking colours.