Page 120 - Libro Max Cetto

Max L. Cetto and the Territory of Architecture

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only true architectural innovation was the open chapel. For him, these open chapels
resembled the pre-Columbian teocallis, with rituals occurring before large open spaces. As
with the idea of the horror vacui, here Cetto alluded to the notion, very popular at the time,
that there were formal recurrences in Mexican art and architecture. Several architects of
his generation claimed that it was possible to detect “invariants” or “constants” through-
out the history of the country’s architecture. One of them, José Villagrán, developed this
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idea more extensively and elaborately, but Cetto did it in a much more concise and non-
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ideological fashion. Unlike Villagrán, who, as quoted in Cetto’s book, saw unfavorably the
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emergence of a certain “decorative, unarchitectural and, fortunately out-of-date, formalism,”
Cetto, as we will see, was more tolerant of this phenomenon, yet more consistent within the
transhistorical logic of these “constants.” 40
Cetto emphasized the predominantly urban character of the colonial enterprise, indi-
cating the importance of religious, civic and educational institutions and buildings in the
consolidation of public life in Mexico. Recognizing the importance of not only Mexican
but Ibero-American urbanism in general, he nevertheless regretted that the study of its
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cities did not have the recognition it deserved among specialists. Interestingly, he once
again invoked Alberti whom, in his role of a theorist of urbanism, he called the father
of Mexico’s public squares; the “maternal” side being represented by the pre-Columbian
settlements themselves. He did not overlook the extreme violence exercised against the
Mexican population during the colonial period, in which nevertheless a sentiment of
identity and national pride with respect to colonial art and architecture gradually began
to consolidate.
Cetto defined the neoclassical architecture of the nineteenth century as a “rational-
ist reaction against the exuberance” of the Baroque, but stressed its unpopularity among
the men of the street. However, he acknowledged that its emergence obeyed a complex
geopolitical and transcultural situation that led to the eclecticisms which dominated that
century. According to Cetto, the last of these eclecticisms, extending into the twentieth
century, was represented by Mexico’s adherence to the culture, technique and architec-
ture of the United States. As a general desire for modernization, one of its most negative
aspects was its deafness to local circumstances and idiosyncrasies: “In their support for
our present-day technology and modern desire for comfort in the home, architects often
stubbornly disregard not only popular sentiment but also plain common sense and the
understandable aversion to slick, smooth conformity.” 42
Cetto therefore suggested that his colleagues pay more attention to the country’s
anonymous, vernacular architecture, as it revealed solutions that could solve the problems
they faced; although he confessed that, in urban contexts, these solutions would have to

36 Having toured the country and documented many of these works, Cetto was a great connoisseur of the subject. He was
also a close friend and sometimes a partner of John McAndrew, the principal and hitherto unmatched researcher of that
typology. See John McAndrew, The Open-Air Churches of Sixteenth-Century Mexico, Atrios, Posas, Open Chapels, and Other
Studies (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965).
37 See José Villagrán García, “Prologue,” in Clive Bamford Smith, Builders in the Sun: Five Mexican Architects (New York:
Architectural Book Publishing, 1967), 12-14; Panorama de 50 años de arquitectura mexicana contemporánea (Mexico City:
INBA, 1952); and Seis temas sobre la proporción en la arquitectura (Mexico City: INBA,1963).
38 For Cetto, the historical constants of Mexican architecture were evident at different scales, from details to the
proportions of open spaces and the configuration of towns and cities. Daniel Garza Usabiaga unconvicingly tries to
differentiate Cetto’s interpretation from the idea of continuum advocated, in his opinion, by other Mexican architects.
See “Max Cetto: Protagonist of the Development of Modern Architecture in Mexico,” in Max Cetto, Modern Architecture in
Mexico [facsimile edition].
39 Max L. Cetto. Modern Architecture in Mexico, 24.
40 On the subject of “constants,” see Juan Manuel Heredia, “Juan Sordo Madaleno y el sentido de la proporción,” in
Miquel Adrià and Juan Manuel Heredia, Juan Sordo Madaleno 1916-1985 (Mexico City: Arquine, 2013), 35-8.
41 Ramón Gutiérrez would not publish his Architecture y Urbanismo en Iberoamérica (Madrid: Cátedra, 1983) until 1983.
42 Max L. Cetto, Modern Architecture in Mexico, 21.

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