There are houses to forge your own story and there are houses where you are part of history. In general, each property for sale is an empty niche, a blank canvas to occupy, live in, furnish and paint to your liking... and there are homes with a special touch in style, a unique touch in architecture and a monumental historical burden. Casa-Estudio Juan O’Gorman (CEJO) belongs to the second category of houses; the special ones, the “treasure houses”.
Originally, CEJO was built in 1932 in the heart of the San Ángel Inn neighborhood, being one of the first houses in the area and one of the first examples of the architectural modernist movement called “functionalism”. In style and architecture, it is sister to the famous Casa-Estudio Diego Rivera-Frida Kahlo (1931) and Casa Cecil O’Gorman (1929), today national heritage museums, located a few steps away, on Av. Altavista and Calle Diego Rivera respectively. The similarities have a reason: All three were built by Juan O’Gorman, one of the most influential and decisive artists of the 20th century in the country, who “Mexicanized” the principles of Le Corbusier, and of whom CEJO is one of those rare housing experiments still standing. O’Gorman was, in a certain sense, a Renaissance man; architect, engineer, muralist, painter and social activist. An essential man to understand Mexico through institutional pedagogy. He forged the national identity through his mural creations and habitable spaces. Author of heritage sites of humanity and national heritage whose works can be found in every corner of Mexico City.
Juan O’Gorman built, intermittently lived and died in this house, which is why the weight of his vigilant ghost haunts, embraces and secretly accompanies every corner of this peculiar work of art for sale. A true haven of silence & peace that dazzles with its warm simplicity and luminous austerity. True to his principles, O’Gorman built his home like a shoebox, where he kept his “old slippers,” as he affectionately referred to this house, because it was “comfortable and useful.”
In addition to the value of the house and its history, the dining area hosts a fabulous, priceless petromural with the image of a XIX century eagle symbol, embedded in the fireplace, as a testimony to Ogorman’s artistic spectrum, and which you will possess as a symbolic extract of what was his later magnum opus: The murals of the Central Library of Ciudad Universitaria at UNAM, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The fireplace is your little World Heritage Site, with which you can wake up every morning and liven up meals with your loved ones. A dreamy movie set.
You can also enjoy the mature, century-old garden, with its 200-year-old pirul, a leafy bougainvillea rooted for decades, as well as dozens of long-lived shrubs and trees, which make up this colorful canvas.
The rooms, due to their construction model; with baked clay placed on an exposed structure of joists and vaults and ingenious cross ventilation, regulate the temperature of these spaces for each season of the year. You will have freshness in spring and warmth in winter, making each space an intelligent and sustainable design.
And if that were not enough, apart from the large double-height main studio and its great entrance of light, where Juan O’Gorman left testimony of his work area with an interrupted canvas, you will also have two completely independent studios, with their own entrance and full bathroom, located to one side of the main building, entering through the garden.
CEJO is a palpable museum, a living heritage, unprecedented on the market. Do not miss the opportunity to acquire an essential piece of history... and be part of it. Become history. Be part of the legend. Perpetuate a legacy and feel worthy of acquiring a once-in-a-lifetime property.