The architecture of Luis Barragán by Emilio Ambasz (1976). The following text is the excerpt written on the back of the book: "Internationally known, the Mexican Luis Barragan is one of the most gifted practitioners in contemporary landscape architecture. In his work the wall is both the supreme entity and the inhabitant of a larger metaphysical landscape; in the de Chirico-like settings he creates, it is at once a screen for revealing the colors of Mexico's almost white sun, and a shield to suggest unseen presences. Barragan's magnificent gardens and carefully constructed plazas seem to stand either as a great architectural stages for the promenade of horses or as echo chambers for the constant cascade of water. While his design approach is classical and atemporal, the elements of his architecture are deeply rooted in his country's cultural and religious traditions; through the haunting beauty of his hieratic constructions we may begin to understand the ardor and intensity of Mexico's architecture. Barragan, at the age of 74, has been admired by a full generation of architects - yet the present book is the first major work to be devoted to this remarkable figure. The illustrations assembled here provide a dazzling visual survey of his work, and the total Barragan oeuvre is documented in a list of works and accompanying bibliography. Emilio Ambaz, born in Argentina in 1943, formerly taught at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Princeton University, and at the Hochschule fur Gestaltung, Ulm. He is now Curator of Design at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he directed, among other major exhibitions, "Italy: The new Domestic Landscape."

In 1980 Mexican architect Luis Barragán won the Pritzker Architecture Prize; he followed Philip Johnson as the inaugural laureate in 1979. Four years before Barragán's victory, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York mounted a major exhibition on the designer who merged architecture and landscape architecture as well as anyone before or since in modern times. MoMA's architecture department was founded by Johnson, but this exhibition was curated by Emilio Ambasz during his tenure there. I'm not certain if the exhibition played a part in the Pritzker Prize to Barragán, but I'd imagine it played a part in bringing the architecture more deserved attention. The exhibition was accompanied by this slim catalog, which documents six of Barragán's works through text and photographs, about a third of them in color. Given the important role of color in his exterior and interior spaces, it seems like there should be more color photos, but those supplied tend to be large (full-bleed, often) and pack a wallop next to the b/w photos. There aren't many books on Barragán, fewer still written before he died in 1988; so this title, which can still be found quite inexpensively, is a solid introduction to his buildings and landscapes, though that will probably have you wanting to explore further. ( )