Cuadra San Cristóbal: Barragán’s Striking Horse Ranch Home
The Mexican architect’s masterpiece of modern architecture is framed by brightly colored walls and a signature fountain.
Duke and Wally absolutely loved visiting Cuadra San Cristóbal, an amazing home and horse ranch designed by Luis Barragán.
Luis Barragán is, undeniably, one of the most influential architects of the 20th century. Revered for his mastery of color, light and shadow, which blend vernacular hacienda elements with modernist influences, the Mexican architect’s legacy continues to inspire and influence contemporary design.
Brightly colored walls meet at right angles and form artistic vistas everywhere you look.
It had been a dream of mine to see the famous pink-hued walls of the Cuadra San Cristóbal equestrian estate. The iconic ranch has served as the backdrop for countless creative projects, including an editorial campaign featuring French model Léa Seydoux shot onsite for Louis Vuitton in 2016 (which, naturally, included a horse or two).
Louis Vuitton did a fashion shoot at Cuadra San Cristóbal, which turned out pretty freakin’ cool.
When Wally and I had the opportunity to visit the modernist landmark on a trip to CDMX, I searched the web to plan our pilgrimage and found the Traveling Beetle, an architectural guide service that offered a half-day Barragán tour including access to this emblematic structure.
Barragán was an avid equestrian and in the 1960s, he directed his admiration for the bold and graceful four-legged creatures into the construction of the gated community of Los Clubes, a residential subdivision in Ciudad López Mateos designed to attract the equestrian elite of Mexico City.
Wouldn’t you just love to sit and admire this view?
The private seven-and-a-half-acre estate was designed and built in collaboration with Barragán’s protégé Andrés Casillas from 1966 to 1967 as a home and horse ranch for Folke Egerström and his family. The two met while riding at the nearby Club Hípico Francés and shared a passion for the equestrian lifestyle.
The white portion is the family home, while the pink is an entrance to the gardens.
Barragán’s True Colors
Viewed from the street, the unassuming perimeter wall of Cuadra San Cristóbal presents a blank face, concealing the stables, fountain, courtyard, house and gardens beyond. Only the name spelled out in metal letters on a wall in front hints at the gentility of the property.
Duke, whose first name is actually Christopher, or Cristóbal in Spanish, points to his namesake attraction.
San Cristóbal was part of a half-day excursion with the Traveling Beetle, during which we tooled around in this tomato-red VW Bus.
The unassuming front door to the complex doesn’t offer even the slightest hint of the gorgeousness beyond.
Wally and I exited the mint-condition orange-red ’76 VW Combi Bus and followed Martín, our tour guide, passing through a wooden door that led to an open patio paved with squares of volcanic basalt stone. It was late morning and the sunlight gave the Egerström family home a soft glow. The white Cubist-looking structure stood to our left, its façade absent of ornamentation save for a slatted rectangular window. Directly ahead of us, a hedge and tree hid the courtyard beyond. The opening was framed by a white wall to one side and a rust-red wall to the other. We glimpsed a bright pink wall beyond and a cascade of water. Talk about a dramatic entrance.
Martín gestured to the opening. “The walls act like curtains to the main stage,” he said. “Barragán was a showman.”
The entrance to the home on the property, still owned by the Egerström family.
Our guide, Martín, described the walls, one white, the other brick red, as curtains of sorts, framing the spectacle to come.
We followed the sound of the gurgling water that spilled in a steady stream from a spout in a massive wall into a shallow basin. The pool reflects the sky, evoking a sense of tranquility but also serving a practical purpose as a trough to provide horses with water and to keep cool.
The first glimpse of the courtyard at Cuadra San Cristóbal
Barragán was inspired by the Islamic gardens of the Alhambra in Spain and elements of Moorish architecture in North Africa, which focused on interior life arranged around a peaceful open courtyard garden and fountain.
Even though the cuadra is in a neighborhood, it’s easy to forget this. Everywhere you look, you’re surrounded by greenery, and walls frame the open space, ensuring privacy. Barragán, you see, was at heart an introvert.
Barragán is known for his rectangular walls painted vibrant hues — especially this shade of magenta, which has become Mexico City’s official color.
The Wonderwalls of Cuadra San Cristóbal
As we moved closer to the courtyard, the white walls of the home receded to reveal a kinetic energy of broad intersecting horizontal and vertical planes awash in rosa mexicano (bougainvillea pink) and mauve (jacaranda purple). The palette was informed by Barragán’s lifelong friend and frequent collaborator, the painter Chucho Reyes. Colors build a strong contrast to the sand beneath our feet and the surrounding tropical flora.
In fact, the colors were chosen to act as complementary tones to those provided by nature: The bright pink plays off the dark green of native plants; the tan wall provides a contrast with the blue sky; and the brick red wall pairs nicely with the aqua water in the pool.
A kaleidoscope of colors: brick red, magenta, aqua — and, of course, sky blue and green, provided by nature.
Right angles, pops of color, shifting shadows — these are all Barragán signatures.
Note the small gap where the two walls meet.
A sleeping schnauzer rests in the back corner of the courtyard.
The fountain at San Cristóbal is similar to another Barragán design, la Fuente de los Amantes.
I had seen photos of the very place where we were standing — but the color, form, texture and scale cannot truly be comprehended without experiencing the monumentality of the design in person. This is where I became acutely aware of Barragán’s use of scenic framing and spatial manipulation to create a dramatic sense of passage. Everywhere I looked, layers of color entered my field of vision. To me, this was truly a sacred space, where the concept of time seemed to dissolve.
A copse of trees, including a jacaranda and an ombú, with its strange yellow fruit, act as an organic foil to the geometry of the measured lines. They stood in direct contrast to a pink wall with two vertical cutouts that suggested a citadel fortification but were, in fact, vents for hay bales.
It’s easy to get caught up by the beauty of the space and forget that, at its heart, this is a horse ranch. But that’s exactly what it is, as you can see from the stables to the right.
Out to Pasture
We approached the stable and passed under the overhang of the boarding barn. Once home to 37 thoroughbred horses, the stalls were designed for the gentle giants to be able to see, smell and communicate with each other.
The clubhouse is located at the end of the stable near the fountain. Inside is a well-preserved teletype, which was used to send and receive printed messages and data via telephone cables, probably considered state-of-the-art at the time it was installed. Above eye level, a clerestory window perfectly frames a slice of the sky, illuminating the space with subtle natural light. Martín told us that Barragán didn’t include many built-in lights into his designs — instead, he relied on indirect sunlight and lamps.
After using the bathroom in the clubhouse, Wally came out with a big smile on his face. “We peed in a Barragán, bitches!” he whispered to me.
When we visited, there were only two horses kept at Cuadra San Cristóbal.
These two vertical openings are part of the dramatic wall of the courtyard. Here, at the back, you can see they have a purpose — offering ventilation for the hay.
A back entrance to the living quarters of the stables
It’s ironic that Barragán is famous for his intense color palette, when it was actually chosen by his friend, the painter Chucho Reyes.
All of the colors were chosen to match or complement that of the natural setting. The legendary pink, for instance, perfectly mirrors the blossoms of the property’s bougainvillea trees.
The purple wall is actually a gate that opens via gravity.
Duke pets Frida, one of the worker’s pet schnauzer.
A black schnauzer named Frida, owned by one of the workers, was napping in a corner of the yard and later came by to say hi to me. At the time of our visit, Cuadra San Cristóbal was home to a black cat who slinked by us as we made our way over to the pasture where a pair of horses, Little Girl and Carbonero, stood. When Wally asked about the name — Carbonero translates to Charcoal, a strange moniker for a white steed — Martín replied that it’s considered unlucky to give a white horse a name that refers to its color.
The garden is filled with cacti and palms.
Not Your Garden Variety Garden
Many of the gardens designed by Barragán were intentionally left unmanicured in places. Martín led us to an unassuming secret garden concealed between an opening between the house and interior courtyard. Nature was incorporated throughout all of Barragán’s works, and landscapes were often designed by the architect himself. A magic tunnel of greenery hidden away in the woods behind the home led to a small wooden table.
Barragán was a devout Fransican Catholic with deeply held spiritual beliefs. He felt that an essential part of his architecture should elevate the experience of its inhabitants, including plants, animals and humans. This private bower was a place for meditation and prayer, Martín told us. “It’s a place to have a deep conversation with the Almighty.”
Such isolated spaces are an element in all of his works, Martín continued.
The green of the native plants offers a pleasant contrast to the hot pink walls.
Looking back toward another pasture, in a corner of which the family’s beloved donkey is buried
In another part of the back garden, a donkey that was a beloved family pet is buried among the hedges.
Martín spoke to one of the ranch hands, then beckoned for us to follow him, a twinkle in his eye. One of the owners who had been on the patio had gone back inside, so we would be allowed to see the Egerströms’ private pool area. We returned to the entrance portico, went up a few steps and made our way through a passage cast in shadow that suddenly opened to an intimate outdoor space. A pavilion overlooks a swimming pool and provides shelter from the sun. It would be a nice, quiet place to read — as attested by a recently abandoned newspaper that sat atop a table, fluttering in the breeze.
We were fortunate enough to be able to explore the family’s private outdoor space.
How’d you like to cool off in this pool on a hot Mexico day?
The impressive swimming pool isn’t part of every tour. If the family is enjoying it, you won’t be able to see it.
Seen from any angle, Cuadra San Cristóbal is a masterpiece of harmony, scale and space. Even though it was built in the mid-’60s, its design remains modern and it certainly cemented my appreciation for Barragán. –Duke
Cuadra San Cristóbal
Cerrada Manantial Oriente 20
Mayorazgos de los Gigantes
52957 Ciudad López Mateos
México