Page 123 - Libro Max Cetto

Juan Manuel Heredia

but also included contemporary movements such as expressionism and surrealism. Like
Hocke, Cetto saw the development of modern architecture, not only in Mexico but interna-
tionally, as being the transition from orthodox classicism toward a mannerism that it already
contained within it.
In his book, Cetto spoke of the importance that functionalism had for modern
architecture in Mexico, primarily highlighting O’Gorman’s schools and Legarreta’s housing
complexes. He connected the premature retirement of the former and the premature death
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of the latter to the movement’s stagnation and later discreditation. Within the context of
mannerist production, a group of young architects gave continuity to the functionalist
legacy in their fashion, but with an aesthetic emphasis and little or none its original
social content. This group represented the first front in Cetto’s critique of modern Mexican
architecture.

The First Front: Internationalist Architecture

Cetto’s first and most severe critique in his book was aimed at internationalist architects,
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whose work was dominated by the use of steel structures and glass surfaces. One of his
main targets was the duo of Ramón Torres and Héctor Velázquez, although he also criticized
certain works by Manuel Becerra and Jorge Teja, Augusto H. Alvarez, Francisco Artigas,
Raúl Cacho and Abraham Zabludovsky. In them, Cetto detected the heritage of Mies van
der Rohe, but exhibited their limitations in trying to acritically emulate the German master.
If Mies’ work showed off his structural clarity, scale, proportion and careful attention to
detail and materials, the work of these young architects represented a superficial approach,
an exacerbation of the Miesian aesthetic:

The sorcerer is not to be blamed if the apprentice forgets the magic formula, permitting
the mechanical brooms to run wild and clean and polish the modest house until every
heretical irregularity and every individual touch has been eliminated and the natural
nobility of things heedlessly forfeited. 58

Against Mies’ classicism, Mexican architects fell into a monotonous academicism as a
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product of their lack of intellectual discipline. Cetto also criticized the onerous construc-
tion systems with which they built, deeming them inappropriate for local circumstances,
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and accused these architects of being snobs. Perhaps more importantly, in this section
of the book, as well as in several of the examples shown in its interior, Cetto approached
the problem of the poor relationship that their works had with Mexico’s climate and cul-
ture. Contrary to the widespread idea that designing for temperate climates requires great
technical knowledge, Cetto emphasized the ease with which it was possible to design for a
climate like Mexico’s:

56 Cetto’s intuitions were correct. It could be argued that the absence of these two architects (coupled with the almost
simultaneous retirement of Luis Barragán who, along with Villagrán and the first two, had been considered the young
promises of Mexican architecture in the 1930s), if it did not cause Mexican architecture to stagnate, at least fundamentally
upset its development. These four architects were the most prominent in Esther Born’s book The New Architecture of Mexico
(New York: William Morrow, 1937). With Villagrán as the sole leader, the country’s modern architecture consolidated in
its own way, but without the strength, rebelliousness and imagination of these pioneers and always accompanied by those
mannerist or decorativist reactions detected by Cetto and Villagrán himself.
57 In his aforementioned writings, and many others, Villagrán made similar criticisms to those of Cetto.
58 Max L. Cetto, Modern Architecture in Mexico, 25.
59 Max L. Cetto, Modern Architecture in Mexico, 25.
60 Max L. Cetto, Modern Architecture in Mexico, 25.

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