Page 147 - Libro Max Cetto

Max Cetto: Architect and Historiographer
of Mexican Modernity

Daniel Escotto

Where thinking suddenly stops in a configuration pregnant with tensions, it gives that
configuration a shock, by which it crystallizes into a monad. A historical materialist approaches a
historical subject only where he encounters it as a monad. In this structure he recognizes the sign
of a Messianic cessation of happening, or, put differently, a revolutionary chance in the fight for the
oppressed past. He takes cognizance of it in order to blast a specific era out of the homogeneous
course of history –blasting a specific life out of the era or a specific work out of the lifework. As a
result of this method the lifework is preserved in this work and at the same time canceled; in the
lifework, the era; and in the era, the entire course of history.

Walter Benjamin, Über den Begriff der Geschichte

t is disturbing to reflect on that idea raised by the German-British critic and historio-
Igrapher Nikolaus Pevsner toward the end of his life: that of creating a new history of
architecture through forgotten figures. He obviously refers to the period ranging from the
anthropocentric humanism of the Italian cinquecento up through the modernity of the first
half of the twentieth century, as the history of architecture and art that we know today has
been written with the names and surnames of the most notable as its central script. It is
therefore tempting to start from new coordinates, 0-0.
The book Modern Architecture in Mexico (1961), written by Max Cetto and first published
sixty years ago, is a variant of this Pevsnerian idea. While it does not veil the most renowned
Mexican figures, it does constitute an attempt to highlight the genealogical branches of
modern Mexican architecture, so often explained in different ways by local historiographers.
The vast majority of them failed precisely because of an incestuous vision that conceived
of Mexican modernity as a unique condition, isolated from other sources of oxygenation.

The nature of Cetto’s critical ideas is the same as that of nineteenth century explorers like
Désiré Charnay and Alexander von Humboldt; it is precisely their character as foreigners
that makes them value the greatness of a new culture, yet they are also uncompromising
regarding the drama and obscure intentions unconsciously produced by that same society.
While Max Cetto considered himself to be a German-Mexican architect, certain passages
led to well-known controversies between Cetto and several renowned Mexican architects
for a variety of reasons, but principally due to the idea of what constitutes good architecture
for different publics. In the introduction, Cetto starts out by trying to explain where these
ideas come from, paraphrasing Sybil Moholy-Nagy, Bruno Zevi, Adolf von Hildebrand, his
master Henrich Wölfflin, Sigfried Giedion and even Pevsner himself; of course, his own
architectural and academic past comes to the surface.
I will therefore center that which formed the basis for Max Cetto’s vision, so necessary
for the historiography of twentieth century Mexican architecture: expressionism and the
New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit), going over the ideas of those authors and architects
that touched Max’s soul, from his academic training to his professional practice, in order
to demonstrate the intellectual consistency of our beloved German-Mexican architect. On
this point, it is worth highlighting his gratitude and affection for his mentors, as can be
seen in the dedication on page five of the first volume: “To the memory of my master, Hans
Poelzig.”

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