Pie Raymond Régamey’s View of Modern Religious Art and His Contribution to Luis Barragán’s Architectural Work: 1947-1980

Abstract

The Capuchin’s Chapel in Tlalpan emblematises one of the most important architectural works built by Luis Barragán between 1954 and 1959. By that time, Barragán had a very good religious art and architecture knowledge as well as he was keeping a strong relationship with the intellectual catholic community from now. Additionally, the sizeable personal Barragán’s books and magazines collection related to religious art and architecture is another evidence of his personal concerns about these areas. It is worth noting that Barragán left a form of marginalia in many of his own books and magazines such as underlined paragraphs, written notes, folded pages, photos and entire magazines pages as bookmarks. In fact, most of the religious art and architecture books and magazines have these marginalia, especially those of modern times and texts written by Marie-Alan Couturier and Pie Raymond Régamey. These evidences enable a broad number of conclusions beyond modern religious art discussions. Considering that Barragán read those texts at the very same moment he was developing his ideas of emotional architecture, these texts about modern religious art could have been such a great value for Barragán’s architectural perspective and its evolution. Firstly, the article states on the catholic intellectual context during Barragán’s days. Afterwards, a critical analysis about some of the religious art and architecture collection of the personal library, specially a book called L’art sacré au XXe siècle, written by Pie Raymond Régamey in 1952, will be developed. This analysis will evaluate the impact of underlined passages in L’art sacré upon Barragán’s thinking which led his architectural work reconsidering the modern inhabits forms in Mexican domestic life during 1950’s and its evolution until 1980’s.