Dive into Guadalajara modernism, and this lesser-known strand of Mexican architecture

Guadalajara modernism might not get as much airtime as other regional examples of the International Style, but it remains a fascinating case of its genre. Yes - the capital of Mexico's Jalisco State was a major playground for forward-thinking, experimental 20th-century architecture.

The fascinating case of Guadalajara modernism

Modernist architecture found fertile ground to grow in the North American country, and Guadalajara, specifically, is a captivating chapter in the movement's evolution here. Louis Barragán, who was born in the city, is a key proponent, joining many peers who worked on modernist and brutalist architecture across the city and the wider state of Jalisco. Meanwhile, the region's movement influences creatives to this day, such as Laura Barba and Luis Aurelio of Barbapiña Arquitectos, one of the leading emerging Mexican architecture studios.

Louis Barragán and Tapatía Architecture School

During the 1920s and 1930s, four local architects and civil engineers, including Luis Barragán, Ignacio Díaz Morales, Pedro Castellanos Lambley and Rafael Urzúa, formed Escuela Tapatía de Arquitectura (Tapatía Architecture School) in Guadalajara. The four embraced a contextual approach to architecture, connecting modern influences with the vernacular tradition of Jalisco State.

The most well-known among them, the legendary modernist Barragán, was born in Guadalajara in 1902. After travelling in Europe during the 1920s, he settled back in the city and began the first phase of his famed architectural career, a period that lasted until 1936, when he moved to the capital of Mexico City. During his time in Guadalajara, Barragán’s work was strongly influenced by Spanish colonial architecture.

His work there comprises more than a dozen private homes in the Colonia Americana district, an area now situated near the city centre but once a semi-rural suburb where Barragán’s houses were surrounded by farmland and pastures. In these projects, the architect drew on colonial traditions and Art Deco, blending them with his signature sensibility for colour and light; this formed the beginnings of the colourful minimalism he later became known for.

Notable examples of this period include Casa González Luna (1928) and Casa Cristo (built a year later), where Barragán combined simplicity with arcade shapes and bold plaster colours, featuring shades of yellow and red. By the early 1930s, Barragán was moving away from his colonial influences, with designs drawing significantly closer to the avant-garde, functionalist architecture of his era.

In 1934, for instance, he designed the stark white home and studio of the renowned painter José Clemente Orozco, as well as a house for Emiliano Robles León just around the corner. Although Barragán’s early work remains relatively little-known, it was in Guadalajara that the distinctive profile of one of the 20th century’s most important architects began to take shape.

Architect Pedro Castellanos Lambley was also an influential representative of the early stages of Guadalajara modernism. Born into a wealthy family, Lambley studied engineering and became one of the founding fathers of the Tapatía Architecture School. Casa Quiñones, designed in 1930, is considered the first modernist house in the city, blending international Art Deco influences and Streamline Moderne with a distinct regional twist. In 1938, Lambley stepped away from secular architecture and joined the Franciscan Order, becoming ordained as a priest in 1940.

Another cultural synthesis of modern and vernacular styles is a series of 57 murals in the city, painted by famous artist José Clemente Orozco in 1938. Located inside one of the oldest and largest former orphanage and hospital complexes in the Americas, Hospicio Cabañas (now the Instituto Cultural Cabañas) is a complex built during the first half of the 19th century. With its neo-classical architecture and stunning courtyards, the campus is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Guadalajara Bauhaus and artistic monuments

In 1948, Ignacio Díaz Morales founded the architecture department at the ITESO, Universidad Jesuita de Guadalajara (now part of CUAAD at the University of Guadalajara). Based on the ideas of the Bauhaus and other avant-garde educational establishments of its time, this architecture department invited many young architects to teach. Among them were German and Austrian exiles, such as Mathias Goeritz and Erich Coufal.

German-born architect and sculptor Goeritz became famous in Mexico City in the 1950s, designing public sculptures and frequently collaborating with Barragán and others. In addition to his teaching activities based on a Bauhaus-inspired curriculum at the newly founded Escuela de Arquitectura of the University of Guadalajara, he also designed El pájaro de fuego (The Fire Bird). This large-scale, exposed-painted-concrete sculpture was created in 1957 for the city's Jardines del Bosque development. Since then, many interesting sculptural monuments were built in Guadalajara. Often placed in parks or in the centres of roundabouts, these sculptures became signature symbols of the city.

One of the most influential designers of these monuments was the architect and sculptor Fernando González Cortazár. After studying architecture in Guadalajara, González Cortazár studied Aesthetics with Pierre Francastel at the Superior School of Art and Archaeology, and the Sociology of Art with Jean Cassou at the Collège de France, both in Paris. After returning to Guadalajara, he designed several notable urban interventions, including La Gran Puerta, built in 1969. This yellow-painted gate is a symbolic entrance to the city.

Two Brutalists

After the Second World War, Guadalajara went through a period of rapid urban development, which led to the creation of many new public spaces. Particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, architecture in Guadalajara was thriving, embracing the signature style of modernist and brutalist architecture and their bold geometric forms.

One of the most significant architects of that era is definitely Félix Aceves Ortega. Aceves Ortega, who is currently 83 years old, built a handful of important brutalist structures around the city, including multipurpose commercial buildings, administration complexes, apartment buildings and private houses. His bold geometries highlight the sculptural qualities of exposed concrete. Casa Robot (Casa Vargas) or Edificio Vasarely, both designed at the end of the 1970s, use primary geometric shapes, such as circles and rhombuses, to form striking facades. His Edificio Luviano, built in 1978, was recently restored to its former glory.

Alejandro Zohn Rosenthal's work shares some similarities with Aceves Ortega's style. Zohn Rosenthal, who was Jewish, was born in Vienna and fled to Mexico with his family in 1939. He studied both engineering and architecture, graduating in 1955 in Guadalajara. His degree included a thesis on a market design, titled Mercado Libertad, a project he eventually realised as one of his first completions, built between 1953 and 1958.

Besides teaching at the University of Guadalajara, Zohn Rosenthal co-founded Arquitac (Arquitectura, Asociación Civil) in 1961 and later conducted extensive research on affordable housing solutions across various cities in Mexico. Some of his striking designs in reinforced concrete include the mixed-use building Edificio Mulbar, completed in 1974. Here, a shopping gallery is located under garages with a perforated concrete skin. One of Zohn Rosenthal's later works is Archivo del Estado de Jalisco, which opened in 1989. It features dramatic stacks of vertical concrete volumes.

Like Barragán and his contemporaries decades earlier, Aceves Ortega and Zohn Rosenthal created an original local version of modernism in Guadalajara that is no less interesting than the more famous projects of the same period in Mexico City.