Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Studio Houses

At twenty-four Juan O'Gorman bought two stepped tennis courts in San Ángel and built a house on the lower one, nominally for his father. Diego Rivera saw it, liked it, and was offered the neighbouring court at cost in exchange for the commission. What went up in 1931–32 is two blocks on one site — red and white for the painter, blue for Kahlo — standing apart and touching only at a bridge across the roofs, the whole thing fenced by a hedge of organ cactus. The doctrine is stated without apology: slabs left rough, wiring on the surface, only the brick walls rendered, floor-to-ceiling glazing where a studio needs north light, and the ground floor opened up on slim piles. O'Gorman summarised it as the minimum of cost and effort for the maximum of use. Rivera moved in from 1934 and died in the studio in 1957.