Aldo Rossi, Construction in Collina (Hillside Structures), 1987, pen and pastel on paper, 20" x 15".		New York City's notoriously insular, cutthroat art world tends to toss superlatives like "legendary" and "seminal" at just about anyone who survives beyond their allocated 15 minutes. In his 30th year on the scene, gallery owner Max Protetch has more than earned such praise—he's practically immune to it. Consider that dealers are only as good as the painters and sculptors they represent. In a converted warehouse space on West 22nd Street, across the street from the DIA Center for the Arts, Protetch exhibits blue-chip artists who've already earned a place in the art history books, from Italian Pop master Michelangelo Pistoletto to postmodern abstractionist David Reed. But what sets Protetch apart from the competition is the fact that he represents architects. When Protetch began his career in Vietnam War-era Washington, D.C., he was the only dealer in town showing conceptual and minimalist art, and he quickly earned a name for himself. Only after succumbing to the lure of New York City in the late 1970s did Protetch begin to cultivate professionally his longstanding interest in architecture. Thanks to an unstable economy and a growing interest in theory and history, tyro architects were spending more time sketching and writing than actually building. Protetch offered Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, John Hejduk, and other proto-superstars a unique opportunity to air their iconoclastic ideas. "When I was a student at Cooper Union, some of my classmates and I helped install the first Aldo Rossi show at Max's gallery," recalls P/A Award-winning New York City architect Karen Bausman. "No one knew Rossi's work in the United States. Those drawings were a revelation." While no other American art dealer of his stature has ventured into architecture, Protetch doesn't see the two worlds as being that far apart: "I cannot imagine being interested in art and not interested in architecture, and vice versa," he marvels. Not surprisingly, the work of many of the artists Protetch represents have strong formal and conceptual links to architecture. Tehran-born Siah Armajani, for instance, creates model-like sculptures as part of a series he calls the Dictionary of Building. Though Protetch continues to cultivate young artists, many of whom explore architectural ideas, his roster of architects has matured with him. He now focuses on designers he's exhibited from early on, and frequently handles entire estates. These remarkable holdings, including those of Frank Lloyd Wright and Luis Barragan, typically end up in the collections of major museums. "When we did the first Wright show," Protetch says, "can you imagine that there were 40 or 50 of his drawings on a gallery wall, and all you had to do was go in and buy them?" Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Sketch for Hubbe House in Magdeburg, Germany, 1935, ink on tracing paper, 7" x 11"
Partial Exhibition List 1979 Michael Graves; Richard Meier; Aldo Rossi 1980 John Hejduk; Frank Gehry; Michael Graves; Emilio Ambasz; Richard Meier 1981 Leon Krier; Charles Moore; Romaldo Giurgola; Louis I. Kahn; Bernard Tschumi 1982 Office for Metropolitan Architecture: Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis; Gaetano Pesce 1983 Frank Lloyd Wright; Aldo Rossi; John Hejduk; Michael Graves 1984 Louis Sullivan; Louis I. Kahn; Furniture by Architects: Michael Graves, Steven Holl, Todd Williams, Billie Tsien, Frank Gehry, John Hejduk, Richard Meier, Gaetano Pesce; Leon Krier; Erik Gunnar Asplund 1985 Frank Lloyd Wright; Eliel Saarinen; Erik Gunnar Asplund; Bernard Tschumi; Michael Graves 1986 Paul Rudolph; Eric Mendelsohn; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; Ricardo Bofill; Arata Isozaki 1987 Frank Lloyd Wright; Zaha Hadid; SITE; Buckminster Fuller; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 1988 Office for Metropolitan Architecture: Rem Koolhaas and Eva Zenghelis; John Hejduk; Bernard Tschumi; Barbara Stauffacher Solomon; Charles Moore; John Hejduk; Coop Himmelblau; Gaetano Pesce 1989 Erik Gunnar Asplund; Aldo Rossi; Peter Eisenman 1990 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; Erik Gunnar Asplund 1992 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; Aldo Rossi 1993 Erik Gunnar Asplund 1995 Buckminster Fuller 1996 Louis I. Kahn; Louis Sullivan 1997 Tadao Ando; Frank Lloyd Wright 1999 Zaha Hadid; Aldo Rossi and Erik Gunnar Asplund		Ned Cramer: How did you get into the art scene? Max Protetch: I had many older half-brothers and -sisters, and they were all involved in art in one way or another. The oldest, David, had a medical practice on East 77th Street, next door to the Castelli Gallery. He only accepted patients who were in the arts, with whom he could be friends. We would go to visit him when I was child, and through him I met [novelist Vladimir] Nabokov, [composer Igor] Stravinsky, and [artist] Larry Rivers. They were all patients. During graduate school in Washington, D.C., from 1968 to 1970, I found myself going to New York every weekend to look at art with a friend who opened a gallery with me in Washington, D.C., in 1969. Why did you start showing architecture? I've always loved architecture. I bit the bullet, moved to New York, and left the Washington gallery in 1977. I was aware enough then that the most interesting architecture of the time wasn't being built. It was being either written about or drawn, and I thought, this is something I should begin showing. I ended up spending every Monday afternoon with John Hejduk and Peter Eisenman at Cooper [Union], talking about what an architecture gallery should be. They both were quite angry when we finally opened the next year with Michael Graves. Why were they so mad? Because I showed Michael. He was about what was going on at that moment: postmodernism. I've never been a fan of postmodernism, but Michael was making a very important statement, and he was also brave enough to do a show and sell his drawings. The whole architecture community frowned on that at the time. Drawings were to be given to an archive, and he had broken with tradition. But we sold them all and I was shocked. People were wild about it. What other architects did you show? Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Aldo Rossi. Rem Koolhaas had his first show with me. Frank Lloyd Wright's was the first archive, as opposed to a living architect, that you became involved with. Yeah. I had two interesting connections. One was the uncle of the artist David Reed, who I had been showing since I opened in New York. O.P., his uncle, was a dealer. At some point after Wright's death, when Mrs. Wright was in financial difficulty.... She had inherited the estate? Everything. O.P. sold a lot of Japanese prints and things for Mrs. Wright without taking a commission. I thought it would be a good idea, since I was so young—about 30 at the time—to ask an older, more experienced person who knew them to be my partner. I was going to meet Mrs. Wright, who could hardly see or hear at the time, but was a very intuitive person. I remember thinking, I'm going to be judged on my vibes and I am so nervous. I said something about it to a Swiss drop-out from the A.A. [Architectural Association] who worked at the gallery, Elias Moser, and he said, "Oh, say hello to old Olgivanna for me." This is a very polite young man, and no one referred to her by her first name. It was always Mrs. Wright. Where did he get off calling Mrs. Wright by her first name? He said, "I always did when she stayed with us in Zurich." It turned out that his grandfather worked at the Bauhaus and with Wright, and Wright was his father's godfather. When I walked into Mrs. Wright's apartment for the first time, the place smelled and felt like my ancient Russian aunt's in Pittsburgh. I immediately felt more relaxed. And after: "By the way, a young man who works for me asked me to say hello. Name is Moser." "Oh, how is little Elias?" It broke the ice and I've always been grateful to him for that. We had particularly nasty articles after the first sale of Frank Lloyd Wright's drawings. People were upset because they felt a foundation should be established. She told me that Wright had always told her that she could sell some of the land and drawings if she needed money. What people don't really realize about architecture estates is that there are many variations on each drawing. I later made sure that the knowledge was preserved. Taliesin got a photograph of each Wright drawing, and the Getty established two separate photographic archives—everything in the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation archive, and another that included all the architectural drawings we displayed at the gallery. Paul Rudolph, Theoretical Flap House—Aerial Perspective, 1952, pencil and ink on paper, 25¼" x 41¼". Wright was the first major non-contemporary that you represented. I guess I learned early to start at the top. The only major classic modern architect that I haven't had many objects pass through my hands is Corb. One day I got a call from a man named Hans Asplund. I got on the phone and said, "You aren't by chance related to Erik Gunnar Asplund?" "I'm his son. I was wondering if you were interested in my father's work." "Very interested." "Maybe we can sell some of the drawings." And I said, "Great. But I thought they were in the collection of the Swedish architecture museum." "They are, but they are not owned by them." Sticky situation. Later the Swedish government made a claim on them and, of course, Hans was right. The drawings were on loan to the museum. That was my first international intrigue. He and his brother, Ingemar, later set up a foundation. They give scholarships to young architects in Sweden. Again, he was very helpful in getting photographic duplication of the work.
Douglas Darden, Oxygen House—South Elevation (Drum-Torso Retracted), 1988, 33" x 23¼"		There are some controversial drawings in your archives, like the Mies project for the Nazis. Those are the drawings for the German Pavilion at the Brussels World's Fair. I think he submitted it in 1938 after he had gone to the United States. As part of a competition? Yes. I guess the ultimate judge of everything in the Third Reich was Hitler. They have the German flag of the time, which was the swastika. We're not going to show them until we do our next Mies show. I'm trying to do it at the same time the Museum of Modern Art has their show, get them into the right hands, and introduce them in a way that I think is appropriate. The objects in the current Rossi show are actually from his own office, right? His office at home. Aldo loved going to flea markets and antique shops. So these are the drawings he kept for himself, in little frames that he found. Max, what does the art world think of you showing architecture and art? It's a pretty nasty world, but compared to the world of architecture it's downright benevolent. People like to have an excuse to write you off. I was showing new, younger artists, but very established architects. There was a time when I was doing a lot of architecture shows. Other dealers or the media got away with calling us the architecture gallery, dismissing the fact that we always showed at least 50 percent art. Do you see a corollary between the artists and the architects that you show? This is going to sound more crazy and neurotic than I really am: I cannot imagine being interested in art and not interested in architecture, and vice versa. I can't understand how someone who is visually oriented, who is a collector or involved in either of the disciplines, wouldn't be interested in the other. Because for me they have always gone hand in glove.

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