En-Medio is a free publication produced by Departamento del Distrito featuring illustrations by Arina Shabanova. The project highlights the delicate status of Modernist architectural heritage in Mexico City with the evolving stories of six mid-century masterworks. Individual issues are dedicated to the Casa Ortega, Súper Servicio Lomas, Museo Experimental El Eco, Casa Cueva, Restaurante Los Manantiales, and Torre Insignia. Through conversations with those who have lived and worked in the projects of interest, historians who have studied them, activists who have fought for their preservation, and iconoclasts who have wished them dismantled, En-Medio drops into architectural narratives of the city, long underway, to ask what possible futures lie ahead.[1]

Issue one features the Casa Ortega, Luis Barragán’s first house constructed in Mexico City and primary residence from its completion in 1942 until its sale to Alfredo Ortega in 1947. Located on General Francisco Ramírez Street in Tacubaya, Casa Ortega occupies the lot adjacent to the well-known and UNESCO listed Casa Estudio Luis Barragán. The houses and their expansive gardens occupy what used to be a single property purchased by Barragán in 1940. Together, they have experienced the urban development of Tacubaya and surrounding neighborhoods, from the multilane construction of Constituyentes and Periférico to the implementation of Bando Dos and resulting influx of mid-rise towers since 2000. The evolution of the Casa Ortega and Casa Estudio Luis Barragán has diverged, however, through the distinct methods of preservation by which they have been maintained. The former has been managed through the continuous care of a single family while the latter is regulated by international preservation guidelines and seeks both public and private funding for its upkeep. Subsequently, the Casa Ortega offers a uniquely personal view on Modernist preservation as well as the early work and life of Luis Barragán.

The following conversation was held with siblings María Teresa and José Manuel Bárcena Ortega in January 2017. The sister and brother inherited the Casa Ortega from their uncle and respectively live and work inside the house. We met to discuss their family history, childhood, and what it means for each of them to occupy a Modernist relic in the developing neighborhood of Tacubaya.

Casa Ortega, a conversation with María Teresa and José Manuel Bárcena Ortega

José Manuel
Luis Barragán probably arrived here in 1939 or 1940. I’m almost certain he began by building the gardens and afterwards he constructed a place to stay, like a weekend apartment. In the only blueprint I’ve seen prior to Barragán’s intervention to the site—which, by the way, is in the Barragán Foundation archives in Switzerland [2]—one can recognize a series of bays that can be interpreted as studios, simple bedrooms, or even stables.

There is a version of this story that says Luis Barragán came to Tacubaya looking for dogs; I don’t believe that, because Barragán never had dogs, he didn´t like them. My theory is he was looking for horses and happened to find this terraced lot, which was once the site of a tepetate stone mine.

María Teresa
My uncle bought the house from Barragán in 1947, and since the family was very close we all moved to the area. Our first house was located at 4 Francisco Ramírez Street, which had a garden that connected to my uncle’s property.

Back then, Tacubaya was like a small town. The street was the same size but I believe only my uncle’s house and Barragán’s were on this side. In front of them were Del Moral’s house, my cousins, Cuco Sánchez’s brother’s house, a couple of vecindades, and that was about it.[3] Furthermore, this street was paved, but the small street that intersects it—Luis G. Curiel—was a dirt road. When it rained, rivers would pour down.

Departamento del Distrito
How did your uncle know the house was on sale?

JM
There are two versions of that story. The first is that he found the house through a real estate agent. The second is that because Luis Barragán was a client of my uncle’s silver company, it’s possible he told him personally about the sale. My uncle visited and liked it.

DdD
Can you explain a little about the origin and history of your uncle’s silver company?

JM
It all began with my grandfather. He was a silversmith. My uncle learned the trade from him and at a young age opened his own store on Filomeno Mata Street. Later, as my uncle’s company grew, he invited my grandfather to work with him and they started the family silver company together. This must have been in 1928. By the 1940s their silver company had become one of the most recognized in Mexico. There are records of pieces sold to the King of Sweden, the King of Spain, President Kennedy, First Lady Nancy Reagan, people of that level. This allowed my uncle to attain a high standard of living and also to acquire this house.

DdD
What was your relationship with your uncle and aunt?

MT
Very close, they were like second parents to us. They didn’t have any children, so they adopted their four nieces and nephews as their own. We would gather often in their home and had the tradition of having lunch every Sunday until my uncle got sick.

JM
As my sister is explaining, we never thought of this house as my uncle and aunt’s house; it was our house. Sometimes we would have lunch here or there, and would stay up until eight or nine at night speaking to my aunt or watching TV, until my dad would shout, “Come to bed!”

DdD
You mentioned your house was connected to your uncle’s by the garden?

MT
Yes, the garden was shared and we played there. We would spend all day making mud pies.

DdD
Once you moved to Tacubaya, how was it having a neighbor like Luis Barragán?

MT
Look, I only saw a very tall, very serious, bald man with light eyes who would arrive to and leave his house, nothing more. I didn’t have any contact with him apart from saying, “Good afternoon” and “Good morning.”

JM
What I do remember well about Barragán is that he asked my uncle not to let anyone into the house because he believed people were copying his work. That’s when my uncle stopped letting people in.

DdD
In that regard, the nature of Barragán’s work—the interiority of his projects and use of closed, protective facades towards the street—functioned to distance people from the houses he designed.

MT
Indeed, this house only has a couple of small windows to the street.

DdD
When did your uncle pass away?

JM
He died in 1988, the same year Barragán passed away. My aunt lived for five more years, until 1993. During the time of my uncle’s illness he abandoned the silver business and stopped paying attention to the property. The garden grew wild and ivy began to invade the entire house. The interior was almost uninhabitable.
From 1993 to 2007 the house was empty, though I started taking care of the property shortly after my aunt’s death. The first thing I did was prevent further deterioration of the house and garden. I began a daily routine, coming to the house in the morning to open the windows and ventilate the rooms and then back again at night to shut it all up.

DdD
In regards to the interiors, to what extent have you tried to restore and maintain the original conditions of the house?

JM
Well, we have maintained the original colors Barragán had on the walls when he sold the house to my uncle. For example, I know the walls are painted in the original shade of pink because we found it in the interior of a closet by the entrance. The paint had never been exposed to light, so when we opened the closet we found the original color intact. I took a sample to Comex and they matched it. The only space where I modified the amount of color was the breakfast room because Luis Barragán had it all painted pink.

DdD
The same as the breakfast room in his later house…

JM
Yes, indeed. It just felt too pink.

MT
Way too pink!

JM
Too bright for such a small space, that’s why I painted parts of the room white and parts of the room pink. That is the only change we’ve made so far.

In regards to the garden, I have opted to let it grow and evolve naturally because it is impossible to keep it looking like a garden from a magazine. I tried at some point, but when we started experiencing water scarcity I abandoned the idea. Before that time we had enough water for two to three people to care for the garden at the same time, and we could just about water it all in a single day. Not anymore, though. Now, each section gets watered once a week. That’s to keep the plants alive, not to have them looking splendid.

DdD
Speaking of the garden, what is the story behind the stone sculptures there? Have they been in place for a long time?

MT
Since we came to Tacubaya.

JM
Since Luis Barragán put them there, they’ve stayed in place. They weigh a ton! The ones in the back of the garden—the human busts and torsos—require four or five people to place them on their bases.

Let me tell you an anecdote in regards to the sculptures in the garden. Last year the German Embassy gave a donation to repair the wall that divides Casa Estudio Luis Barragán from us, because the tepetate stone with which it was built was falling apart and it had holes in the lower sections. I helped fix the wall, and installed a small channel for the water to remain above the level of the foundation and to avoid flooding around it. As it happened, when we excavated the site we discovered several glass spheres. One could tell Barragán put them in the garden and there they had remained.

Various small objects around the property have been unearthed that way.

DdD
Modern archaeology.

JM
Yes, yes, indeed. That is how you can see the continuity between one thing and the next.

DdD
How is it living day-to-day inside the house?

MT
To be honest, the house is a bit uncomfortable. For example, my uncle had to have someone install a railing on the main staircase after my aunt fell and broke her collarbone. And when it rains all of the water from the garden comes into the house and it floods. It comes in through the back door and cascades down.

JM
Since the topography of the lot angles down towards the house and there is only a small drain, water often comes into the hallway. This corridor has flooded fifty times. It’s happened so much that when we get the summer storms I stand by the door with a long broom and clean away the leaves to keep the drain free. Once we had to change the carpet because water traveled all the way to the bedroom.

Like all houses, this one has its problems. Probably the most talked about is the volcanic stone floors, they’re very pretty but…

MT
Very cold!

JM
And cleaning that type of stone is impossible.

DdD
I can imagine that your daily life has also been affected by the urban development of Tacubaya in recent years. When did you first sense the neighborhood was changing?

MT
When they built Periférico, no?

JM
That was the first substantial change in 1964 along with the metro system a few years later. However, I believe the most radical change, the most unpleasant, was Bando Dos.[4] The building in front of the house was built due to Bando Dos. I visited it out of curiosity when they were promoting it. They were selling only the exterior frame, everything else was extra. They built the building so quickly that when construction began and INBA came to see it—and since bureaucracy always operates poorly, late, and slowly—they couldn’t do anything to stop it.[5]

MT
And since those buildings were built we’ve exper- ienced increased water scarcity, which is clearly a problem when it comes to caring for the garden.

DdD
On the future of the property, what would you like to happen to the house when you are no longer living here?

MT
The sons of my cousin Álvaro will inherit the house and I imagine they will sell it…

JM
Look, that’s exactly what happened with Casa Prieto-López: there was a moment in which the original owners didn’t have enough money and there was no alternative but to sell the house in order to preserve it. Casa Prieto is a very large property and someone who had the money bought it.[6]

Clearly, I believe that this house and garden should be preserved. In Mexico, landscape preservation is not part of our culture, however, the garden is iconic and the only one of its kind. The house, until recently, was one of the least-known works of Barragán because it is the least published. There are not many people who know about the house, and even less who know about the garden. Independent of who the owner is, they must be preserved. Also, I’m saying this because Catalina once mentioned she would like to have both houses be part of the same tour of Casa Estudio Luis Barragán.[7]

You have no idea how many people have told us, “Whenever you want to sell, contact me.”