Page 154 - Libro Max Cetto

Max Cetto: Architect and Historiographer of Mexican Modernity

Adolf Meyer was a fundamental figure in Frankfurt’s architectural environment, pri-
marily working in the Frankfurt School of Arts, closely linked to the Department of Pub-
lic Works, and in the design and construction of industrial buildings for the city’s power
company. His sudden death interrupted the work he had been doing on May’s team; his
separation from Gropius made him a very important figure during this time. His great
architectural conceptions represented a new way of confronting modernity that remains to
be explored historiographically. His office building for the city’s power company is a clear
example of this confrontation with industry requirements and the way in which the accep-
tance of “new architecture” does not only refer to forms and functions exempt from that “will
of form.” The Kholensilos of Kokerei’s factory highlight the latter and the visible concrete in
both works shows the “expressive” force he always wanted to manifest when with Gropius.
Max Cetto worked at the Frankfurt Department of Public Works from 1926 until
its dissolution in 1930. “At the age of 23, he penetrated the networks of an immense ap-
paratus of local power, where he would take part in an experiment to create a utopia; an
unprecedented process that demanded an unprecedented technical-intellectual responsibil-
”15
ity of May and all his collaborators. Max Cetto was the “leading artistic force” within the
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department’s General Services section, which was led by Ferdinand Kramer. At that time,
thanks to his plastic capacities, he was commissioned several buildings for the same power
company as Meyer. Near those offices, Cetto designed a coal mill in 1926, a small build-
ing that stands out for its architectonic expressiveness. It uses brick as an expressive force
that grounds it in its reason for existence: “a coal mill.” In the wall structure, one can note
that dematerialization of which the expressionists spoke (Stahlfachwerk). This function gave
Cetto the basis for a simple yet ingenious system of transporting fuel through the exterior
and interior of the building. The use of glass windows, as he learned in his years working
with Poelzig, and his relationship with rustic materials reveal that confrontation between
tradition and technique that ran through expressionist projects. This is a clear example of
the abstraction and concretization of “new architecture,” “an excellent monument to the in-
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dustrial culture of the Neue Sachlichkeit.” The mill was completed in 1929. At that time, he
shared the ideas of Adolf Meyer and the work of both had many parallels, albeit ephemer-
ally, due to the tragic death of the latter shortly afterward.
Following this work, Max Cetto would build almost all of the power company’s build-
ings between 1927 and 1930. This would be his most rationalist period. Purity invaded his
creative spirit, an influence that was already quite marked by the Frankfurt firm’s produc-
tions, architecture that was essentially Neue Sachlichkeit but with a different client: the city
in formation, which radicalized the responses of the architects who confronted it. The Frie-
densstrasse power plants (Schaltanlage 5 and 6) in 1928 proclaimed the sobriety of a plain
slab over a glass structure; as in Gropius’ Bauhaus, transparency revealed different interior
planes almost piling on top of each other, as if they were overlapping veils or films. In 1929,
he designed and built another power plant (Umspannwerk Eschersheim), where the nostalgia
of the curve appeared as if he was trying to synchronize it with the Stuttgart Weißenhofsied-
lung or the Römersiedlung itself. A secret expressionism that does nothing but adapt to the
moment.
Max Cetto would design more buildings during that period in Frankfurt, some for
the Department of Public Works and some privately, such as in competitions. One of

15 Dussel Peters, Max Cetto (1903-1980).
16 I would like to emphasize the importance of Susanne Dussel’s Spanish translation and publication of Max Cetto’s
documents and letters while at the Frankfurt Department of Public Works; without this, it would have been very difficult
to understand how important Cetto was within the group. Dussel Peters, Max Cetto (1903-1980).
17 Jochem Jourdan, “Frankfurter Bauten der Energiegewinnung und Elektrizitätsversorgung,” in Jahrbuch für Architektur
1984. Das Neue Frankfurt 2 (Frankfurt am Main: Englert und Schlosser, 1984).

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