Page 136 - Libro Max Cetto

The Story of a Book. Modern Architecture in Mexico Cristina López Uribe and Salvador Lizárraga Sánchez

not unique to Mexico. An important part of the discussion around the language of modern
architecture in most Western countries revolved around the alleged loss of buildings’ rela-
tionship with where they were built. To our author, a seemingly innocuous discussion about
an adjective meant nothing less than the insurmountable difference between an architecture
that came along and positioned itself in a place without regard to its history, customs and
ways of seeing the world and that which could supposedly arise “organically” from the land
of which it would be a part.
In the correspondence, we also find an in-depth discussion about whether any contem-
porary building is really modern. It is clear that, for Cetto and the German publishers, not
just any building that was built in 1958 could be considered modern, even if it was built
with industrial materials and an abstract language. So which buildings would meet the im-
portant requirement of being modern? Throughout the book, Cetto never defines this with
precision. In any case, his letter indicates that he considers this discussion to be useless and
bluntly ends with the theme of the usage of the word “modern” in the title, stating that it is
more important to others than to him.

Design

The design of the book began to be discussed in early 1957. Cetto proposed that it be based
32
on Neue Deutsche Architecture (1956), edited by Hatje. During the early negotiations, one
of his greatest concerns was how to accommodate the text on the pages of a trilingual edi-
tion. In addition, the author considered that, if such a complex edition was made, the space
intended for his essay would be too small to include everything he needed to say. However,
when subsequently defining that two bilingual editions would be published, the format,
typography and size were changed to that of Pier Luigi Nervi’s book Bauten und Projekte
33
(1957), by the same publisher. Cetto greatly appreciated this change, since his descriptions
of buildings were increasingly expanding. However, the publisher made it very clear on sev-
34
eral occasions that the texts had to conform to the design and not the other way around.
The typographic layout was handled by Klaus Frank, who was, at this same time, preparing
his own book titled Ausstellungen / Exhibitions in collaboration with Praeger, the American
publisher who would be in charge of the English version. 35
Moderne Architektur in Mexiko consists of two parts: an introductory essay followed by
a photographic catalog of modern architecture from the fifties. Inserted into the second
part is a brief urban study explaining the complicated nature of the subsoil of the Valley
of Mexico. Both essays are intertwined with images of great meaning to construct the
author’s arguments. This editorial structure –an introductory text followed by an extensive
photographic catalog– is part of a long tradition of architectural books that, by the time
Modern Architecture in Mexico was published, was well established. In Mexico, it coincides
with the structure of the country’s first book on modern architecture, The New Architecture
in Mexico by Esther Born (1937), and with Mexico’s Modern Architecture by I. E. Myers
(1952), with 4000 años de arquitectura mexicana (1956) as well as with many classic books on
the architecture of the Modern Movement, such as Gli elementi dell’architettura funzionale
(1932) by Alberto Sartoris, Die Baukunst der Neuesten Zeit (1927) by Gustav Adolf Platz,
Modern Architecture by Bruno Taut (1929), etc. In Giedion’s books, and Le Corbusier’s, the
structure of the pages themselves is used to construct architectural arguments; images and

32 Letter from Cetto to Hatje, January 29, 1957 (AMCC).
33 Letter from Hatje to Cetto, January 7, 1959 (AMCC).
34 One of these occasions was Hatje’s letter to Cetto dated January 7, 1959 (AMCC).
35 Klaus Frank, Ausstellungen / Exhibitions (Stuttgart: Hatje, 1961).

136