Eight Modern Mexican Homes Worth a Look
A summary of "Eight of Mexico's most stunning modern homes" by Dominic Lutyens, published by BBC Culture on 17 April 2026.
BBC Culture recently ran a piece by Dominic Lutyens on eight Mexican houses featured in Mexico Modern: Architecture and Interiors, a new book by Tami Christiansen with photographs by Richard Powers (Rizzoli). It's worth reading in full. Here are the main points.
The background
Mexican modernism took hold after the Revolution of 1910–1920, when architects wanted a national style free of colonial influence. They looked to pre-Columbian buildings, whose simple geometric forms suited modernist taste. According to Christiansen, Mexican architects didn't copy the Europeans. They added colour and texture, paid more attention to climate and landscape, and treated concrete as something with character rather than a plain surface.
The eight houses
Praxis, Mexico City (1975), Agustín Hernández Navarro. The architect's own retreat in Bosques de las Lomas. A raw-concrete tower inspired by a treehouse, built from pyramid and prism shapes.
Casa Bernal, Querétaro, Chic by Accident. A concrete wing added to a 16th-century colonial house. Big steel-and-glass windows frame the Peña de Bernal rock formation. Floors are Mexican slate.
Rain Harvest Home, Valle de Bravo (2020), Javier Sánchez and Robert Hutchison. A pine-built weekend house, unusual in Mexico, that collects rainwater and runs its sauna on solar power.
Casa de Tierra-Catarina, Taller Héctor Barroso. Rammed-earth walls, a wooden roof for sun and rain, and volcanic-stone fire pits for winter evenings by the lake.
Casa Izar, Taller ADG. Modelled on mountain cabins with steep roofs. Volcanic rock for the coffee table and pool; black clay pottery from Oaxaca.
Casa Coyoacán, Mexico City, Pedro Reyes and Carla Fernández. A two-storey library that mixes Aztec-style stone stairs, rough concrete, and tropical plants in the spirit of Luis Barragán.
Casa Aviv, CO-LAB Design Office. Tall pivoting doors open the living space straight onto a pool of the same width, a direct nod to Barragán's indoor-outdoor approach.
Casa Monte, Oaxaca coast (2023), Carlos H. Matos. Pink-tinted concrete that matches the nearby hills. The upper part echoes traditional palm-leaf palapa roofs.
Why it matters here
None of these houses is in Puerto Vallarta, but the same ideas show up in the best homes on this coast: rooms that open to the outdoors, local stone and wood, and design that deals honestly with heat and heavy summer rain.
Full credit to Dominic Lutyens and BBC Culture. [Read the original article) for the complete text and Richard Powers's photographs.
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