Page 109 - Libro Max Cetto

Bettina Cetto

much broader, as justified in the body of my text. In the appendix, I include a bibliography
of Cetto’s published texts and another of texts that relate to our protagonist and to modern
architecture, especially from Mexico. My desire is for this data to help students and those
who decide to research Cetto.

About the Archives

Catarina Cetto, our protagonist’s life partner, ensured in her later years that the architect’s
documentary legacy was not lost. As a result, several archives were created: In Cetto’s native
Germany, the Deutsches Architektur Museum (Dam) in Frankfurt holds 600 photographs,
70 plans, 25 drawings, hundreds of letters, manuscripts and other documents that account
for the young architect’s prolific activity at the Department of Urban Planning and Public
Works of the then-progressive municipal government of Frankfurt, as well as later works
and sketches from his student days in the Berlin atelier of his admired master Hans Poelzig.
Incidentally, Max Cetto did not study at the Bauhaus because, when it moved from Wei-
mar to Dessau to finally incorporate classes on this discipline, he had already concluded
his university studies. At age 23, he joined the Department of Urban Planning under the
direction of the prominent architect and urbanist Ernst May. There, thanks to his train-
ing as an architect-engineer, he would plan industrial projects, park infrastructure, housing
complexes, hospitals, a famous culinary school, athletic infrastructure, several gas stations
and, especially, buildings designed for the city’s power company: generators, substations, a
coal mill, etc. In collaboration with Wolfgang Bangert, he participated in the competition
for the Palace of Nations in Geneva, a project that was celebrated by Sigfried Gideon, who
considered it the best German project. A little later on, he would lead the construction of
airports in various parts of Germany and design private construction projects in Frankfurt.
He also taught classes in Germany, which were suddenly suspended, probably following the
5
now-famous letter to the Reich Minister of Propaganda. In short, this archive encapsulates
a fruitful career that was cut short in his native country by the rise of Nazism. This environ-
ment made him decide, as did several of his colleagues, to seek out new horizons. 6
Online, it is possible to verify what materials are held by the Dam. Perfectly organized
into folders –each containing a text that analyzes and summarizes its contents– one can see
which documents, plans and photos are available, with their respective inventory number.
The list of books from Cetto’s personal library is available on request. This level of organiza-
tion and care in the archives is, in our beloved Mexico, often still aspirational.
Cetto’s second archive, also perfectly classified and organized, is held by the Getty
Research Institute (Los Angeles, California): 300 documents, especially correspondence
between the years 1925 and 1970, which primarily link him to those architects who took
up residence in the United States, notably Walter Gropius, Richard Neutra, Mies van der
Rohe, as well as with Sigfried Giedion, Josep Lluís Sert, Hans Poelzig, Frank Lloyd Wright,
Stamo Papadaki, Bruno Taut, Lili Reich and Hans Scharoun, among others. The themes
of this remarkably interesting correspondence and other documents are the Bauhaus, the
Ciam, modern architecture and the Neue Sachlichkeit.
It is reasonable to think that Catarina’s decision to offer this archive to the Getty was a
tribute to Max’s stay in the United States, where the architect arrived in 1938 and worked
for ten months for Richard Neutra’s San Francisco office. Incidentally, there he would par-
ticipate in the design of one of the three “Cottages in the Orchard,” small dwellings built

5 Max Cetto, “Brief eines jungen deutschen Architekten an Dr. Goebbels” (Zürich: Die Neue Stadt, 1933), 26-28.
6 I recommend reading Daniel Escotto, “Max Cetto y la arquitectura de entreguerras” (Mexico City: Bitácora Arquitectura 9)
and Evelyn Hils-Brockhoff, “Zum Nachlass von Max Cetto (1903-1980)” (München-New York: DAM Architektur Jahr-
buch 1996, Prestel Verlag), 178-183.

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