Juan O’Gorman Biography, Buildings and Best Books

Juan O’Gorman (1905-1982) was a Mexican architect and painter. In his twenties he built the first functionalist houses in Mexico, including the twin house-studios of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in San Ángel, and dozens of low-cost schools. Later he turned against functionalism towards an organic, Mexican architecture, covering the Central Library of the National Autonomous University of Mexico with a giant stone mosaic.

Coyoacán and functionalism

O’Gorman was born in Coyoacán in 1905, the son of an Irish-born engineer and painter. He studied architecture at the National University and, inspired by Le Corbusier, built a functionalist house for his father in 1929, then the house-studios for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo (1931-1932), linked by a bridge.

Schools for Mexico

As head of construction for the Ministry of Education in the early 1930s he built some 30 primary schools of minimal cost, and he designed the technical school that became the National Polytechnic Institute.

Mosaic and organic architecture

From the late 1930s he concentrated on painting and murals. His mosaic of coloured stones on the Central Library of UNAM (1952-1956) depicts the history of Mexico. His own cave house in San Jerónimo, built into lava rock, was demolished in 1969. He completed the Anahuacalli Museum, begun with Diego Rivera, and died in Mexico City in 1982.