Editing Juan O'Gorman (section)

== Career ==

=== San Ángel houses ===
In 1929, O'Gorman purchased a plot containing two tennis courts in Mexico City's San Ángel [[List of neighborhoods in Mexico City|colonia]]. On the plot, O'Gorman constructed a small house and studio intended for use by his father, now known as the Cecil O'Gorman House. The building's forms were strongly influenced by the work of [[Le Corbusier]], whose theories of architecture O'Gorman studied.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.mascontext.com/issues/27-debate-fall-15/the-personal-debate-of-juan-ogorman/|title=The Personal Debate of Juan O'Gorman|date=2015-12-17|website=MAS CONTEXT|language=en-US|access-date=2020-01-01}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite news|last=Traynor|first=Jessica|date=2018-12-26|title=Juan O'Gorman, architect behind Mexico City's most intriguing buildings|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/juan-o-gorman-architect-behind-mexico-city-s-most-intriguing-buildings-1.3736691|access-date=2020-10-12|newspaper=The Irish Times|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite news|last=Quinn|first=Gary|date=2007-06-21|title=Rediscovering our man in Mexico City, Juan O'Gorman|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/homes-and-property/rediscovering-our-man-in-mexico-city-juan-o-gorman-1.1211437|access-date=2020-10-12|newspaper=The Irish Times|language=en}}</ref> O'Gorman dubbed the house the first functionalist structure in Latin America.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PYWzBgAAQBAJ&q=tennis+court+o%27gorman&pg=PA71|title=Modern Architecture in Latin America: Art, Technology, and Utopia|last1=Carranza|first1=Luis E.|last2=Lara|first2=Fernando Luiz|date=2015-01-05|publisher=University of Texas Press|isbn=978-0-292-76297-8|language=en}}</ref><ref name="Danes2" />

Diego Rivera, a contemporary of O'Gorman, impressed with the design of the Cecil O'Gorman House, commissioned the architect to design a home for him and [[Frida Kahlo]] on an adjacent plot (O'Gorman and Kahlo had been friends since high school in Coyoacan).<ref>{{Cite web |last=Castro |first=Claudio |date=2021-02-02 |title=A Mexico City Tour of Architect Juan O'Gorman’s Design Legacy |url=https://www.cntraveler.com/story/a-mexico-city-tour-of-architect-juan-ogormans-design-legacy |access-date=2024-11-20 |website=Condé Nast Traveler |language=en-US}}</ref> The house was built in a similar functionalist style from 1931 to 1932.<ref name="Danes2" /><ref name=":0" /> The Rivera-Kahlo house was two houses connected by a bridge.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|title=Juan O'Gorman|url=http://architectuul.com/architect/juan-o-gorman|access-date=2020-10-13|website=architectuul.com|archive-date=2020-10-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201018102322/http://architectuul.com/architect/juan-o-gorman|url-status=dead}}</ref> Both houses were purchased to be restored and opened to the public with the [[Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Home Studio Museum|Rivera-Kahlo house]] operating as a museum.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Orzechowski|first=Alan Rojas|date=2018-01-17|title=Restoring the past: The Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Home Studio|url=https://www.iconichouses.org/news/restoring-the-past-the-diego-rivera-and-frida-kahlo-home-studio|access-date=2020-10-13|website=www.iconichouses.org|language=en}}</ref>

<gallery>
File:FridaDiegoSanAngel049.jpg|The 1929 Cecil O'Gorman House
File:DETALLE ESCALERA CASA JUAN O GORMAN, ATRAS FACHADA CASA-ESTUDIO FRIDA KAHLO SAN ANGEL INN MEXICO DF CLAUDIA AGUILAR.jpg|The exterior staircase of the Cecil O'Gorman house. 
File:San-Angel-Casa-Rivera-Kahlo.jpg|The Rivera-Kahlo house as visible from the street
File:FACHADA CASA-ESTUDIO DIEGO RIVERA SAN ANGEL INN MEXICO DF CLAUDIA AGUILAR.jpg|A bridge connects the two divisions of the Rivera-Kahlo house
File:Vista externa del Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo.jpg|Panorama of Rivera-Kahlo house
</gallery>

=== Schools ===
In 1932, [[Narciso Bassols]], then [[Secretariat of Public Education|Secretary of Education]], appointed O'Gorman to the position of Head of Architectural Office of the Ministry of Public Education, where he went on to design and build 26 elementary schools in Mexico City.<ref name=":0" /> The schools were built with the philosophy of "eliminating all architectural style and executing constructions technically."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fraser|first=Valerie|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/45912935|title=Building the new world : studies in the modern architecture of Latin America, 1930-1960|publisher=Verso|year=2000|isbn=1-85984-307-7|location=London|pages=47|oclc=45912935}}</ref>

After 6 years of functionalist projects, O'Gorman turned away from strict functionalism later in life to focus on painting and murals, including works at the Mexico City airport in 1937 <ref>{{Cite web |title=Murray, Edmundo: "Irish-Mexican Brothers: Edmundo and Juan O'Gorman" |url=https://www.irlandeses.org/ogormans.htm |access-date=2024-11-20 |website=www.irlandeses.org}}</ref> and "Credit Transforms Mexico" for the International Bank on Reforma Avenue, now moved to HSBC.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gupta |first=Tanya |date=2020-11-21 |title=Juan O’Gorman- 13 Iconic Projects |url=https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/design-studio/a2146-juan-ogorman-13-iconic-projects/ |access-date=2024-11-20 |website=RTF {{!}} Rethinking The Future |language=en-US}}</ref>

After being asked by [[Edgar J. Kaufmann|Edgar Kaufmann Sr.]] to submit a proposal for murals for the Pittsburgh Young Men's & Women's Hebrew Association, O'Gorman spent a weekend at Fallingwater, which inspired him to return to architecture,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-07-05 |title=Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera’s Fascinating Connections to Fallingwater |url=https://www.thenotsoinnocentsabroad.com/blog/frida-kahlo-and-diego-riveras-fascinating-connections-to-fallingwater |access-date=2024-11-20 |website=The Not So Innocents Abroad |language=en-US}}</ref> this time a more [[organic architecture]], combining the influence of [[Frank Lloyd Wright]] with traditional Mexican constructions.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=O’Sullivan|first=Lucy|date=2019-04-03|title=Diego Rivera and Juan O'Gorman: Post-Revolutionary Architectural Anatomies|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13569325.2019.1616166|journal=Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies|language=en|volume=28|issue=2|pages=253–275|doi=10.1080/13569325.2019.1616166|s2cid=198068606|issn=1356-9325}}</ref>

===Central Library at Ciudad Universitaria (UNAM)===
{{Main|Central Library (UNAM)}}

[[File:Biblioteca unam.JPG|thumb|O'Gorman's mural ''Historical Representation of Culture'' on the [[Central Library (UNAM)|Central Library at UNAM]]]]
Juan O'Gorman's most celebrated work due to its creativity, construction technique, and dimensions, are the four thousand square meters murals covering the four faces of the building of the [[Central Library (UNAM)|Central Library]] at {{Lang|es|Ciudad Universitaria|italic=no}} at UNAM. These murals are mosaics made from millions of colored stones that he gathered all around Mexico in order to be able to obtain the different colors he needed.<ref name=":1" /> The north side pictures Mexico's pre-Hispanic past and the south facade its colonial one, while the east wall depicts the contemporary world, and the west shows the university and contemporary Mexico.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-07-09|title=Architectural Classics: Central Library, Ciudad Universitaria / Juan O'Gorman|url=https://www.archdaily.com/943125/architectural-classics-central-library-ciudad-universitaria-juan-ogorman|access-date=2020-10-13|website=ArchDaily|language=en-US}}</ref>

<blockquote>From the beginning, I had the idea of making mosaics of colored stones in the walls of the collections, with a technique in which I was already well experienced. With these mosaics the library would be different from the other buildings of {{Lang|es|Ciudad Universitaria|italic=no}}, and it would be given a particular Mexican character.<ref>{{cite web|url = http://bibliotecacentral.unam.mx/murales04.html|website = Biblioteca Central UNAM|title = Creación del mural|access-date = 2015-10-03|archive-date = 2015-10-04|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151004210818/http://bibliotecacentral.unam.mx/murales04.html|url-status = dead}}</ref></blockquote>

=== Later work ===
O'Gorman built and designed his own house in the suburb of Pedregal,<ref>{{Cite web|last=Gallanti|first=Fabrizio|date=2015-12-17|title=The Personal Debate of Juan O'Gorman|url=https://www.mascontext.com/issues/27-debate-fall-15/the-personal-debate-of-juan-ogorman/|access-date=2020-10-13|website=MAS CONTEXT|language=en-US}}</ref> which was part built structure part natural cave, which is known as "The Cave House" from 1953 to 1956. It was decorated with mosaics throughout. It was demolished in 1969.<ref name=":3" />

His paintings often treated Mexican history, landscape, and legends. A mural commission in [[Pátzcuaro]], Michoacan resulted in the huge "La historia de Michoacán" in the Biblioteca Pública Gertrudis Bocanegra in a former church.<ref>Jolly, Jennifer, ''Creating Pátzcuaro, Creating Mexico: Art, Tourism, and Nation Building Under Lázaro Cárdenas''. Austin: University of Texas Press 2018. {{ISBN|978-1477-314203}}</ref> He painted the murals in the Independence Room in Mexico City's [[Chapultepec Castle]], and the huge [[mural]]s of his own 1952 [[Central Library (UNAM)|Central Library]] of the [[National Autonomous University of Mexico]], designed with Gustavo Saavedra and Juan Martínez de Velasco.

In 1959, together with fellow artists, [[Raúl Anguiano]], [[Jesús Guerrero Galván]], and [[Carlos Orozco Romero]], O'Gorman founded the militant Unión de Pintores y Grabadores de México (Mexican Painters and Engravers Union).<ref>{{cite book|last1=Murray|first1=Edmundo|title=Ireland and the Americas : culture, politics, and history : a multidisciplinary encyclopedia|date=2008|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=9781851096145|editor1-last=Byrne|editor1-first=James P.|location=Santa Barbara, California|pages=709–710|editor2-last=Coleman|editor2-first=Philip|editor3-last=King|editor3-first=Jason}}</ref>