Esoteric Survey

  Kipp Stewart, Arthur Umanoff, Kurt Versen, David Stewart, George Nelson and La Gardo Tackett These came from a designer who was doing prototype packaging for Frank Bros. The two smaller boxes have design games that were sold at Frank Bros.  The large box is still sealed! Scandi Stuff. Henning Koppel cookware, Stig Lindberg, Hans-Agne Jakobsson Jack Rogers Hopkins  Signed Isamu Noguchi poster from the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center Plaza I was in Mexico City the weekend before last and visited Casa Pedregal  again. The friend I was with had a discussion with person giving the tour about these Don Shoemaker chairs.   My first shopping stop back in the US, I found one.

Casa Jardín Ortega  (1942) by Luis  Barragán . This project started out as the first house the architect designed for himself. The property was part of a larger parcel  he  purchased and subdivided. There was a small existing structure when he purchased it. The Ortega house is special, not only because it's so early in his career but it was also initially designed for the architect to use himself. It showcases many ideas  Barragán would use over and over again in other works. Barragán said this about the house: “In 1941, I made my first garden in Mexico City. I acquired a piece of land with different levels, I complemented and leveled different platforms to create a garden in compartments, recalling the beauty of the patios and gardens of the Alhambra and the Generalife in Spain“ Barragán  lived in the house until 1947. He then sold it to Alfredo Ortega , a master silversmith. Barragan did not go far. The second and final house he built for himself is ...

I was finally able to visit the Max Cetto house and studio in Mexico City. Cetto designed the house for himself and family in 1949. It is located south of central Mexico City in  Jardines del Pedregal  de San Ángel. Luis Barragan saw the potential in the lava fields of the Xitle and in 1945 purchased purchased property with José Alberto Bustamante. Barragan then created a plan for Pedregal and began selling properties. Some of Mexico's greatest modern architects, like Francisco Artigas, Enrique Castañeda Tamborrell, José María Buendía, Antonio Attolini, Fernando Ponce Pino, Oscar Urrutia and Manuel Rosen constructed homes in Pedregal. However, the first to build was German émigré Max Cetto. In his book (which is one of the best on the subject), Modern Architecture in Mexico , Cetto said... "Certainly it is not Barragan's fault that many of the houses in what is now the city's most exclusive residential area have not risen to the opportunity presented by the unusual cha...