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casa bauhaus

  • Cathi House talks with summer students at the new school and retreat center, which features a wall of indigenous volcanic stone.

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    Cathi House talks with summer students at the new school and retreat center, which features a wall of indigenous volcanic stone.

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    Courtesy House + House Architects

    Cathi House talks with summer students at the new school and retreat center, which features a wall of indigenous volcanic stone.

  • On a 20-foot-by-220-foot lot, four CASA buildings are linked by gardens, courtyards, and fountains.

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    On a 20-foot-by-220-foot lot, four CASA buildings are linked by gardens, courtyards, and fountains.

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    Courtesy House + House Architects

    On a 20-foot-by-220-foot lot, four CASA buildings are linked by gardens, courtyards, and fountains.

  • The CASA building, built with local materials and labor, supports a variety of uses.

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    The CASA building, built with local materials and labor, supports a variety of uses.

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    Courtesy House + House Architects

    The CASA building, built with local materials and labor, supports a variety of uses.

  • Soaring expanses of glass tie rooms to the sun-filled terraces.

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    Soaring expanses of glass tie rooms to the sun-filled terraces.

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    Courtesy House + House Architects

    Soaring expanses of glass tie rooms to the sun-filled terraces.

  • Light floods the 22-foot-high central studio with its glass-and-steel bridge.

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    Light floods the 22-foot-high central studio with its glass-and-steel bridge.

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    Courtesy House + House Architects

    Light floods the 22-foot-high central studio with its glass-and-steel bridge.

  • The tall ceilings give the interior a sense of openness.

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    The tall ceilings give the interior a sense of openness.

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    Courtesy House + House Architects

    The tall ceilings give the interior a sense of openness.

  • Made with local labor and materials, interiors feature travertine floors, a continuous red accent wall, steel railings, whitewashed surfaces, and an old stone wall.

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    Made with local labor and materials, interiors feature travertine floors, a continuous red accent wall, steel railings, whitewashed surfaces, and an old stone wall.

    576

    Courtesy House + House Architects

    Made with local labor and materials, interiors feature travertine floors, a continuous red accent wall, steel railings, whitewashed surfaces, and an old stone wall.

  • A folded plate steel stair connects levels of the third CASA building.

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    A folded plate steel stair connects levels of the third CASA building.

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    Courtesy House + House Architects

    A folded plate steel stair connects levels of the third CASA building.

  • CASA students are immersed in San Miguels cultural heritage, including 17th-century architecture and the Parroquia Cathedral on the town square.

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    CASA students are immersed in San Miguels cultural heritage, including 17th-century architecture and the Parroquia Cathedral on the town square.

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    Courtesy House + House Architects

    CASA students are immersed in San Miguel’s cultural heritage, including 17th-century architecture and the Parroquia Cathedral on the town square.

  • Mexico City stops included the work of architects including Luis Barragan, Enrique Norten, and Theodore Gonzalez de Leon.

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    Mexico City stops included the work of architects including Luis Barragan, Enrique Norten, and Theodore Gonzalez de Leon.

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    Courtesy House + House Architects

    Mexico City stops included the work of architects including Luis Barragan, Enrique Norten, and Theodore Gonzalez de Leon.

  • The Anahuacalli, Museum near Mexico City holds Diego Riveras studio and collection of pre-Columbian artifacts.

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    The Anahuacalli, Museum near Mexico City holds Diego Riveras studio and collection of pre-Columbian artifacts.

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    Courtesy House + House Architects

    The Anahuacalli, Museum near Mexico City holds Diego Rivera’s studio and collection of pre-Columbian artifacts.

  • Students visited a museum housing Diego Riveras "Dream of a Sunday Afternoon" in Alameda Park, originally painted in the Hotel Prado in 1947.

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    Students visited a museum housing Diego Riveras "Dream of a Sunday Afternoon" in Alameda Park, originally painted in the Hotel Prado in 1947.

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    Courtesy House + House Architects

    Students visited a museum housing Diego Rivera’s "Dream of a Sunday Afternoon" in Alameda Park, originally painted in the Hotel Prado in 1947.

  • San Miguel blacksmith Gustavo Cano demonstrates welding and cutting techniques for fabricating the student-designed steel light fixtures.

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    San Miguel blacksmith Gustavo Cano demonstrates welding and cutting techniques for fabricating the student-designed steel light fixtures.

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    Courtesy House + House Architects

    San Miguel blacksmith Gustavo Cano demonstrates welding and cutting techniques for fabricating the student-designed steel light fixtures.

  • Analytical design exercises help students find their voice as designers.

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    Analytical design exercises help students find their voice as designers.

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    Courtesy House + House Architects

    Analytical design exercises help students find their voice as designers.

  • Cathi House presides over a design crit session with students.

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    Cathi House presides over a design crit session with students.

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    Courtesy House + House Architects

    Cathi House presides over a design crit session with students.

  • Cathi and Steven House pose with students on a field trip to the 1732 Hospice of the Holy Trinity, in Guanajuato.

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    Cathi and Steven House pose with students on a field trip to the 1732 Hospice of the Holy Trinity, in Guanajuato.

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    Courtesy House + House Architects

    Cathi and Steven House pose with students on a field trip to the 1732 Hospice of the Holy Trinity, in Guanajuato.

San Miguel de Allende’s streetscapes are inscrutable. Seventeenth-century buildings form a continuous wall on the winding cobblestone streets, and CASA, the new Center for Architecture, Sustainability + Art, is indistinguishable in its surroundings. But behind the deep red stucco façade are four soaring cubes linked by courtyards. In May, its doors opened to American architecture students for five intensive weeks of analytical design exercises, field trips, and theoretical debate.

For San Francisco architects Cathi and Steven House, who first traveled to central Mexico in the early 1990s to source Cantera stone, the idea was years in the making. The principals of House + House Architects purchased three infill lots near the Jardin—the central plaza with its signature pink granite cathedral. On two lots they built a vacation getaway/satellite office and a rental house. The couple finished construction on CASA in the spring, offering the seminar’s inaugural run to students from Virginia Tech, their alma mater.

The Houses describe the study abroad program as “loosely modeled on the Bauhaus.” Participants receive academic credits for classes in architecture, art, and sustainable building. They’re also offered courses in fiber arts, painting, and ceramics and the opportunity to test their ideas with local blacksmiths, carpenters, and artisans.

The goal: to give students a holistic view of architecture, and to help them find their voice as designers. “Travel is so important to keeping the creative spirit alive,” says Steven House, AIA. “To go to an ancient place and walk paths that have been walked for hundreds of years changes who you are and how you think about your work.”

In this culturally rich enclave, where expat retirees, artists, and writers mingle with Mexicans on the town square and four-star restaurants share the streets with elote vendors, the couple also hopes to host groups of architects who “gather at our long table to have interesting conversations at night, when we’re not burdened by the realities of work,” Cathi House says. In addition to Virginia Tech, the summer program will be offered to other universities as it evolves.