Page 113 - Libro Max Cetto

Max L. Cetto and the Territory of Architecture:
His Book Modern Architecture in Mexico

Juan Manuel Heredia

Poelzig’s Lesson

When, in 1961, the German-born, naturalized Mexican architect Max Ludwig Cetto dedi-
cated his book Modern Architecture in Mexico to his master Hans Poelzig, he did so not only
as the sentimental, nostalgic gesture of a migrant yearning for his student years in his native
country, but as a mature architect in true recognition of his teachings and their relevance
1
in a very different context. Indeed, Cetto was a close and outstanding student of Poelzig, a
figure that, contrary to his recurring typecasting as an “expressionist architect,” was rather
an architect, period: someone with deep disciplinary consciousness, identity and conviction.
Unlike people like Bruno Taut, Erich Mendelsohn or Hans Scharoun –all of them also
identified with the expressionist movement in architecture– Poelzig never proposed the
dissolution of one world and the advent of another. His interests were more concrete and
realistic, more focused on the problem of culture and its continuity and transformation
2
through architecture. Born in 1869, Poelzig belonged to a generation older than that of
the expressionists, being a prominent member of the group of reformist architects gathered
around the Deutscher Werkbund, which coined the term Sachlichkeit (“objectivity”) for ar-
3
chitecture. His contemporaries included, among others, Peter Behrens, Theodor Fischer
and Hermann Muthesius, but unlike them, his concerns revolved around the very develop-
ment of the profession, rather than the exploration of its relationships with art, crafts or
industry. Unlike Behrens –an architect with whom he has always been compared and con-
trasted– Poelzig never considered himself an artist or designer, i.e., someone with authorial
4
responsibility over all types of aesthetic or useful objects, but an architect with a clear idea
of the nature and scale of his interventions. Perhaps it is this lesson from Poelzig, that of

1 Max L. Cetto, Moderne Architektur in Mexiko (Stuttgart: Gerd Hatje, bilingual edition in German and English, 1960),
Modern Architecture in Mexico (New York: Frederick Praeger, bilingual edition in English and Spanish, 1961). Facsimile
edition of the latter: Modern Architecture in Mexico/Arquitectura moderna en México (Mexico City: Museo de Arte Moderno,
2011).
2 On Poelzig, see Julius Posener, Hans Poelzig: Reflections on his Life and Work (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press – Architectural
History Foundation, 1990). On his philosophy of architecture, consult his texts “Fermentación en arquitectura” (1906)
en Simon Marchán Fiz ed., La arquitectura del siglo XX: Textos (Madrid: Alberto Corazón, 1974), 27-8 and, especially,
“The Architect,” in Julius Posener, ed., Hans Poelzig, Collected Writings and Works (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1970), 229-46.
Fragments in Julius Posener, Hans Poelzig: Reflections, 188-96.
3 Although “objectivity” is the typical translation of Sachlichkeit, the term “realism” or even the literal Spanish translation,
“cosidad,” seem to be more accurate. See Stanford Anderson, “Sachlichkeit and Modernity or Realist Architecture,” in
Harry Francis Mallgrave, ed., Otto Wagner: Reflections on the Raiment of Modernity (Santa Monica, Getty Center, 1993),
323-60.
4 “De la taza a la casa” (From the cup to the house), as some would say. See Felipe Leal, “De la taza a la casa: Conversación
con Bernardo Gómez-Pimienta,” (Bitácora Arquitectura 10, 2003), 34-45.

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