Luis Barragán House and Studio

Had the chance to visit this site many years ago and was disappointed.

A much better bet is to do a free, self guided walking tour of Barragan's early Tapatia works in Guadalajara. 

It takes you on an approximately two hour walk around the Colonia Americana where you can see his evolving style.

You can visit the Gonzalez Luna (Jesuit University) House, the Casa Cristo House and the Casa Franco for free..

You can find this tour by searching for: "Revisiones de Guadalajara".

I visited this WHS in December 2021. I had been chasing tickets online for months before my planned trip to Mexico, checking every week for availabilities as bookings are only possible for the upcoming 4-5 weeks, but to no avail. Lately, due to COVID restrictions and several functions at the Luis Barragan House, only about 3 or 4 daily tours are conducted, each with a maximum number of 6 visitors so tours tend to fill up very quick. Most tours are conducted in Spanish and usually one is done in English (usually in the afternoon).

When I had almost lost all hope, two free spots became visible on the official Luis Barragan House website, and I managed to book our visit not without any major hiccups encountered while browsing their rather unfriendly booking system. Make sure to have all your details ready and ideally more than one type of credit card as I only managed to settle the 400 pesos per ticket prepayment on the third attempt. When I finally managed to secure our booking, I received the entrance tickets by email, and I set a reminder on my mobile phone with the booked time as only 10 minutes are allowed as a grace period if you're late. I also decided to pay the extra 500 pesos on the spot to be able to take photos.

After ringing the bell at the entrance, we were asked to wait in the Jardin Barragan 17 just opposite till the remaining …

I visited Casa Luis Barragán during my stay in Mexico City in March 2019. Since my day-to-day itinerary was not planned long in advance, I only tried to buy my ticket online a few days before my visit. To my surprise, there were no tickets available for several weeks. I therefore went to the house at the scheduled time for the visit in English. I was able to buy a last-minute ticket at the exorbitant price of 400 pesos (I didn't agree to double that amount in order to take pictures, you'll have to deal with the horrible façade of the house). I don't know if they keep some tickets to sell them the same day or if some ticket holders didn't show up.

The interior of the house is characterised by a unique use of colour and light. The walls are painted in bright colours, mainly yellow, orange and pink. Luis Barragán avoided shades of green and blue, with the exterior bringing these colours into the house through the large windows overlooking the courtyard. The use of only indirect light sources contributes to the atmosphere of the house.

However, what struck me most was the fortress-like aspect of the house and the deep uneasiness that Luis Barragán seemed to be experiencing. All the more private rooms (bedrooms, bathrooms) overlook the courtyard, while the public rooms overlook the street and the horrible concrete façade. Luis Barragán was practically paranoid about his privacy. Even his house has many peculiar …

It's a bit of an education incorporating World Heritage Sites into travel. When I took a trip to Mexico City in January 2017, I knew I'd be viewing several sites dedicated to meso-American civilizations, some dedicated to Spanish colonialism, and hopefully a natural site dedicated to the monarch butterfly migration. I also included a visit to a 20th century site honoring a Mexican architect obscure to me, even through he was the second architect to receive the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize: The Luis Barragán House and Studio.

I made my reservations for the visit in advance, and joined a small group of international visitors for the tour of the home and studio. I had chosen to pay the fee to bring a camera, and I found there were a lot of clean lines and bright contrasting colors to photograph as we walked through the house. The wooden staircase in the library was probably the highlight for me inside, though I also appreciated the simplicity of Barragán's bedroom. The rooftop terrace was memorable, with its bold orange and fuchsia walls, but I preferred the green oases of the backyard garden and the courtyard with the jars. After touring the house, the studio seemed a bit plain, though functional.

Overall I'm glad I visited the site, but I'm not certain Barragán would have been one of my first choices to add to the list for modern architecture. Still, I can understand Mexico's pride in celebrating one of their own.

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I am usually not a big fan of modern architecture, but somehow really enjoyed this site. Like Frederik I left the Metro station on the wrong side of the street and my first challenge was to cross the street. The house itself is rather ugly from the outside (as you can see on the pictures of the other reviews). The entry ticket and especially the photo permit are ridiculously expensive. On the other hand it would have been completely unsatisfying to leave the house with only pictures from the (boring) façade and due to the small rooms and group size it would be hard to take pictures without a permit. The tour was interesting. The guide spoke fast and with strong accent, but as I am used to Spanglish, unlike most of the group, I had no problems to follow. What I enjoyed about the visit were the many small details, between genius and freaky, that were hidden between these walls. Not a place that I intend to revisit, but definitely not the worst place I visited.

I visited this house during my one day in Mexico City flying home from Yucatán. The required reservation over the website did not work, therefore I just went there and was lucky to get a spot in a tour if though in Spanish.

The house is interesting: very clear but still full of asymmetries and surprises. Very modern but full of crosses as architectural elements and in old paintings. Very bright and open, but still protected from the outside world by high walls. It has many brightly painted walls and the predominant color is pink. It came to my mind I f Barragán was gay. A short glance in his biography seems rather to support this. Though the house is a museum you cannot enter all the rooms and it seems Barragán gave it in his will to his last architect partner. Perhaps it is him who still lives there.

The price for the visit is high with 300 Pesos. Our guide was ok but not great. He was not too happy to answer questions and looked from time to time into his chat messages...

While an interesting visit I am not sure if it is unique enough to justify the inscription and based on my internet search I am not even sure if it is his best work. The Cuadra San Cristobal in Mexico City seems a strong competition

Neighbouring to the museum in Nr. 20 is another house by Barragán that you can enter from 10-13.30h for 200 …

Colour, light and space. These are the elements of this house that make it exceptional, and unfortunately I don't think I have the ability to convey their qualities in writing.

The thing that really stayed with me was how Barragán used and manipulated "the places in between" the main rooms of the house. The most prominent was the reception room, having come through a low and dark corridor you arrive into a multi level space, with huge windows up high. The main purpose of these was to let in light and offer glimpses of nature outside, but they were positioned like the majority of the windows in the house to make seeing in very difficult. There are multiple art works that help channel light around the space, a large gold painting and the famous mirrored spheres reflecting the light and offering new perspectives. It was amazing how these clever tools enabled Barragán to use such a small amount of artificial light in the house. Barragán’s use of light and colour aimed to give an almost spiritual response to them, bypassing reason and appealing to a more intuitive reaction, and to my eye this was where the quality of the house really lay. Sadly this is something that really has to be seen on a visit, as it is a hard thing to describe (especially with my non-specialist descriptions).

Initially, I will admit, I was left with a feeling that it was nice, but I wasn't sure of …

One of the most memorable thing of my visit to Luis Barragan House is how to get there, from Tacubaya station, I changed the metro and arrived Constituyentes Station, I followed other passenger to the metro exit, but when I got out the station I knew immediately that I used the wrong one, and need to find the way to cross the road. At first I walked along the highway and found small stairs to the pedestrian tunnel, since I was not sure I decided to ask two police officers who were smoking the way to Casa Luis Barragan. The policemen told me to follow the arrow sign nearby which totally opposite the direction, but well I had to trust officers and the sign. That sign took me to the small way along the highway and then I turned right until I reached a large junction. This time I gave up to ask direction anymore and decide to open my mobile phone for map. I crossed the junction and found small alley and then climbed the stairs to another small dirty road that full with mechanical shops. Then I reached another junction and turned right and that I found a quite clean road and Casa Luis Barragan is on the left!

At that time I was very tired and soaked with sweat. From 5 minutes I planned to reach the house turned out to be 35 minutes. Thanks god that I was still on time for the tour, and I …

It has been 6 years since the previous review of this WHS, and some things indeed have changed. The entrance fee now is a steep (from a Mexican perspective) 210 pesos, which equals 12 EUR. For a further contribution of 500 pesos, you're also allowed to take pictures inside the house, something that has been strictly forbidden for a long time and has added to the site's mystery. I forgot to bring extra money (500 pesos is much more than what you need on an average day in Mexico), so the visitors of this website will have to make do with the ugly exterior views of the house.

The entrance still is on appointment and with a guide only. I joined an English-speaking tour at 12.30. Another tour in Spanish had just ended when we started. There were about 12 people on that tour, and 5 on mine. It's quite a miracle that these tours are so popular: the Casa Luis Barragan is a secret that is well-hidden from the general tourist public. Lonely Planet does not mention it, and the Michelin Green Guide has only a small entry in its Mexico guidebook. Most of the other visitors seemed to be architects or modern architecture buffs.

My tour around the house and the studio took about an hour. The complex has many doors, and we entered all the rooms except for the bathrooms and kitchen. Barragán's private quarters appealed the most to me - I could see myself …

Occasionally, when visiting WHS, one comes across a wonderful surprise and this was such a visit. I had been feeling slightly negatively towards it – why should THIS house, designed by a guy I personally hadn’t heard of, have been inscribed when other, to my knowledge/belief, more significant modern buildings in Mexico and elsewhere in the world, had not!? 2 hours later we emerged, entranced by what we had seen, but still not entirely convinced of its WHS merits!

I was aware of the house as it had been featured in a recent (Jan 2008) BBC series “Around the World in 80 Gardens”. The main surprise then was that we saw very little of it or its garden – in fact little more than an interview with the curator on a terrace before moving on to another of Barragan’s buildings elsewhere in Mexico City. So I was aware that Barragan was more than “Architect” – he called himself a “Landscape designer” but I was not aware of what his own house was like.

Thanks to the previous reviewer (tips on this site can be useful!) I knew that reservation was “required” to visit this site (though, a minor point, Constituyentes Metro is on line 7). I did this easily 4 weeks beforehand by e-mail. We didn’t get our requested time but this may have been to put us on an “English speaking” tour. In fact, however, of the 7 in our group, 3 turned up “on spec” and were allowed …