Page 157 - Libro Max Cetto

A Tribute to Max Cetto

Felipe Leal

ax Cetto was my teacher and undoubtedly my mentor. Allow me to start by sharing
Msome anecdotes of things I witnessed.
I first saw him in the corridors of what was then Workshop 5 at the UNAM’s School
of Architecture, an atelier that now happily bears his name, the Max Cetto Workshop. In
those facilities, when walking down the central corridor on the ground floor, I could watch
through a large window what was happening inside the classroom. I observed a man el-
egantly dressed in a navy blue jacket, a white shirt, a striped tie and gray pants, the classic
uniform of architects in those days, around 1977. His neatness and his well-defined physical
profile caught my attention. I said to myself, “This is a serious workshop because this man
shows his academic commitment.” I stealthily approached him and caught the German ac-
cent that he hadn’t shook; it reminded me of my elementary education, in which I attended
the German School, full of rigor and discipline.
Years later, around 1979, I had the fortune to have him as my thesis advisor. Max
Ludwig Cetto Day, his full name, always reviewed architectural compositions with a keen
eye. He would pause on the shadows and ask, “Where are you viewing this facade from?
Where is the south? That shadow, from where is it being cast? Is it to the north? If so, the
projection of your overhang is wrong.” Such were his reviews. He was always accompanied
by an assistant professor who was somewhat envious of him, for if Max truly dominated a
subject, it was geometry and composition. While watching Max review my work, this as-
sistant whispered under his breath “sombras nada más” (nothing but shadows), recalling
that song by the Mexican singer Javier Solís in an ironic, frustrated tone, as he did not have
this knowledge or mastery of geometry, much less of shadows, quite the opposite of Cetto.
Max, perhaps without realizing it, was strict in his insistence on a geometrical approach,
even placing a sign at the entrance to his classroom that read, "He who does not know ge-
ometry does not have the right to pass through this door." Another anecdote regarding the
placement of signs occurred one October 2, when he put up a sheet of white bond paper
with letters in black marker reading, "Today, October 2, I do not teach" (a reference to the
Tlatelolco massacre, which occurred on that date in 1968). That was Max, as he was known
in Workshop 5: emphatic, forceful, but always friendly and polite.
His commitment to academia was decisive during the period of self-management at
the then-National School of Architecture, today the Facultad de Arquitectura. His opin-
ion influenced many indecisive professors to take sides and opt for the alternative that was
emerging at the time that inclined toward social architecture, but without losing sight of
spatial excellence.
His moral leadership made him into an academic model. In addition to teaching in the
project workshop and serving as a thesis advisor, he also invited the professors of Workshop
5 (now the Max Cetto Workshop) to his home in El Pedregal for informal seminars, ad-
dressing issues of architectural theory, composition and reflections on practice. As a result,
he contributed to several publications with texts on architecture in Latin America. Cetto

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