led in Europe for two years where he developed a love of Islamic architecture after visiting the Alhambra in Spain. Barragßn also had his first exposure to the International Style at this time. Forced to return to Mexico to manage the family ranch he returned to Europe as soon as he could. In 1931 Barragßn met Le Corbusier and attended his lectures. He also met Ferdinand Bac, a landscape architect whose idea of gardens as "enchanted places for meditation, with the capacity to 'bewitch' the onlooker" had already become an important influence on Barragßn.
Barragßn's work divides into four periods. From 1927 to 1934, working primarily in Guadalajara, he produced work heavily influenced by Islamic architecture and the scenic ideals of Bac. In the years 1935 to 1944 Barragßn worked in Mexico City exploring "the language of functional architecture," principally apartment buildings and a few houses in the International Style. On arriving in Mexico he had met Chucho Reyes, "artist, antiquarian, taste-maker [and] passionate advocate of the indigenous culture of Mexico." Reyes worked with Barragßn for years as a consultant and encouraged Barragßn's interest in using indigenous forms and colors.
The next twenty-four years (1944-1968) constituted Barragßn's mature period which includes the works in his now "highly abstract and personal" style, the houses and suburban developments for which he is best known. The work of this period is characterized by the blending of his earlier ideas with a fresh distillation of the convent and hacienda architecture of Mexico and a new and remarkably festive palette. The last years of his life, from 1968 on, found Barragßn relatively inactive with only a few projects undertaken but with an ever-increasing fame. The key to the consistency of Barragßn's work and the regularity of the his stylistic development was the fact that he was a very talented man who did it for love of the work...