(b Koblenz, 20 Feb 1903; d Mexico City, 5 April 1980). Mexican architect, architectural historian and teacher, of German birth. He studied at the technical universities of Darmstadt, Munich and Berlin. At the latter he studied with Hans Poelzig, graduating as an engineer–architect in 1926. In 1927 he took part in the plan for the headquarters of the League of Nations in Geneva, and he was a founder-member of CIAM. He moved to San Francisco, CA, in 1938, where he worked in the studio of Richard Neutra. He settled in Mexico in 1939 and became a naturalized Mexican in 1947. As well as having a natural affinity with Mexico, he was able to incorporate his European experiences into what he built there. The respect for nature he had learnt from Neutra is evident in his handling of the volcanic terrain of the Jardines del Pedregal, Mexico City, where he collaborated with Luis Barragán, constructing various houses amid the impressive scenery of the place without disturbing the volcanic lava or the vegetation. He also showed skill and great sensitivity in using the materials and techniques of the region. Notable examples of his work there are his own house (1949) and that built in 1951 for the painter Roberto Berdecio (b 1910). These and other houses elsewhere, where he combined a Modernist approach with a respect for ecology, were highly influential in Mexican domestic architecture. In 1966 he won second prize in the international competition for a museum of art in West Berlin. He was Professor of Architecture at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, from 1965 to 1979.

• Cetto, Max (L.)
  • Barragán, Luis
  • Mexico, §III, 2(ii): Modernist architecture, c 1910–68