Architecture as Animated Being: The Art of Modeling Referential Bodies in the Architecture of Luis Barragán

Abstract

Luis Barragán’s architecture is often described as enchanting, even though its elements and mechanics remain remarkably simple and universal. Following Spyros Papapetros, this text approaches animation as a way of addressing questions of scale and of negotiating the relationship between nature and the human artefact. The contribution is motivated by the promise of animation to bring together two domains that appear, at first glance, to be unrelated. It pursues impulses toward a different understanding of how animation and architecture intersect when viewed through the lens of modernist practice. Rather than treating architecture as something brought to life by external forces, it foregrounds the inert capabilities of architecture itself as the subject that animates. Because the animation of the inorganic is a necessarily abstract notion, the discussion draws on examples ranging from philosophy to painting. Barragán’s architecture serves as a case study for considering how modernist architecture might be understood as metaphysically animate. In doing so, the text reimagines the role of the architect as one who attentively creates responsive counterparts by attuning to spectrality and atmosphere through embodied eyes.