Quotes from Luis Barragan

Solitude is good company and my architecture is not for those who fear or shun it.

Where do you find more eroticism than in the cloister of a convent?

I believe in an "emotional architecture." It is very important for human kind that architecture should move by its beauty; if there are many equally valid technical solutions to a problem, the one which offers the user a message of beauty and emotion, that one is architecture.

Religion and Myth. It is impossible to understand Art and the glory of its history without avowing religious spirituality and the mythical roots that lead us to the very reason of being of the artistic phenomenon. Without the one or the other there would be no Egyptian pyramids, nor those of ancient Mexico. Would the Greek temples and Gothic cathedrals have existed? Would the amazing marvels of the Renaissance and the Baroque have come about?

Without the desire for God, our planet would be a sorry wasteland of ugliness.

Any work of architecture that does not express serenity is a mistake.

Silence. In the gardens and homes designed by me, I have always endeavored to allow for the interior placid murmur of silence, and in my fountains, silence sings.

Architecture is a art when one consciously or unconsciously creates aesthetic emotion in the atmosphere and when this environment produces well being.

A garden must combine the poetic and he mysterious with a feeling of serenity and joy.

I don't divide architecture, landscape and gardening to me they are one.

My house is my refuge, an emotional piece of architecture, not a cold piece of convenience.