Page 172 - Libro Max Cetto

In Cetto’s Proximity Bettina Cetto

The Model Homes and Cetto’s Relationship with Barragán

During the forties and early fifties, Cetto regularly met with Jesús Reyes Ferreira and
21
Edmundo O’Gorman, as well as with Mathias Goeritz when the latter arrived in Mexico,
at the house of Luis Barragán. Catarina Cetto, having been present on several occasions, recalls:

The parties at Luis’ home were very nice. Luis was a highly interesting person and there
was greatness in everything he did. When he made the Tacubaya gardens, they said, “I
think that if Frank Lloyd Wright had seen that model garden, he would have liked it!”
Luis had a vision for gardens.Then he built his house on Francisco Ramírez and, when
he wanted to put up a wall, he would ask Chucho, “Chucho, what do you think of this
wall?” and Chucho said, “Well, it should have a darker tone,” and then he kept ask-
ing, “Max, what do you think?” and Max replied, “It should be further back.” Barragán
considered all of these suggestions and knocked down walls, repainted. Luis didn’t rest
until everything was as it should be. 22

When I visited the Barragán House in Tacubaya, I noticed that, in front of the floor-
to-ceiling window in his bedroom, Luis built a stone wall, about ninety centimeters high. I
thought: “Look, it’s like Agua 130 (Cettoʼs home), except my father placed the windows on
top of the stone wall, not behind the wall.”
What I am suggesting is that there was always a dialogue. In this regard, it may be
interesting to go back to Cetto, when he analyzes and describes as unsatisfactory the “in-
tegration” in University City, a project in which there converged many architects, but also
painters and sculptors, writing the following:

Integration calls for disciplined partners who are ready to emerge from their own nar-
row subjective worlds and forfeit their individual mannerisms and their unique gifts in
the interests of a productive dialogue. Such a method requires restraint and coordina-
tion if it is not to end up in a Babel-like confusion. 23

In my view, Cetto applied this thinking when the developers –that is, Barragán and
Bustamante– commissioned him to design and build the first model home on Avenida de
24
las Fuentes 10 (later 130). Three years earlier, he had been entrusted with the preliminary
designs for the Prieto López house and the Bustamante house, and even submitted another
for the Illanez House. While these were generous in scale, as they should be to attract the
wealthy public of Polanco and Las Lomas to this new, modern subdivision, these proposals
were apparently too rustic, as volcanic rock would have abounded in the house walls. From
this experience, and given their ever-present dialogue, it became clear to Cetto that Barra-
gán liked stone for walls diving lots and in gardens, but preferred large, flattened enclosed
volumes. There is even a small sketch by Luis in which he suggests volumes for the first mo-
del home, the small one, and a note that says, “Dear Max: I’m sending you this suggestion
for your consideration. Luis Barragán.” 25
Here we are talking about the integration of the splendid model gardens that Luis de-
26
signed for El Pedregal and the entrance to the subdivision –featuring Barragánʼs fountain,

21 Mathias Goeritz arrived in Guadalajara in 1949 and moved to Mexico City in 1952.
22 Taken from the lecture by Catarina Cetto and Felipe Leal, “Max Cetto/Vida y obra,” held on January 24, 1989 at the
Unam and quoted by Susanne Dussel, Max Cetto (1903-1980).
23 Max Cetto, Modern Architecture in Mexico/Arquitectura moderna en México (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1961), 30.
24 See Max Cetto, “Edificaciones de un paisaje volcánico en México,” Bitácora Arquitectura 32 (2016), 47, doi: http://
dx.doi.org/10.22201/fa.14058901p.2016.32.57128.
25 Archivo Max Cetto, Uam Azcapotzlaco.
26 See Bettina Cetto, “Luis Barragán y su maestría con los jardines,” Bitácora Arquitectura 31 (2015), 62, doi: http://dx.doi.
org/10.22201/fa.14058901p.2016.32, and Max Cetto, Modern Architecture in Mexico, 176-177.

172