Architect Beatriz del Cueto (2014) is a Fellow three times over: she is both a recipient of Fitch Foundation funding, and so a Fitch Fellow, as well as a respected Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (the AIA) and a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. In the AIA’s latest issue of Fellowscope — the members’ publication for AIA member architects and, specifically, AIA Fellows — Ms. del Cueto’s Fitch-funded research o f concrete hydraulic blocks in the tropics are features. This article was originally published in Fellowscope, August 2015, p. 37.
FELLOWS FEATS
Beatriz del Cueto, Puerto Rico
Beatriz del Cueto, FAIA, FAAR and Agamemnon G. Pantel, PhD, Associate AIA, were recently invited interviewees at Habana Radio, a program of the Office of the Historian of the city of Havana exclusively dedicated to cultural heritage and patrimony, through its three-hour long section: “Habáname”. Dr. Yamira Rodríguez-Marcano, Architectural Historian for the city of Havana and author, directed the interview session. They carried out research in Cuba for three
weeks as part of del Cueto’s Marston Fitch Grant Project titled: “Concrete Block and Hydraulic Cement Tile in the Tropics: their advent, history and conservation”. These investigations had also taken Arch. del Cueto to archives and libraries in the United States, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, all material which formed an integral part of this research work. Alternate versions of these investigations titled: “Portland Cements in the Spanish Caribbean as Agents of Change: Hydraulic Mosaics and Concrete Blocks” have been accepted as technical papers and will be presented at the Fifth International Congress on Construction History in Chicago during the month of June, 2015, and at the Ninth National Congress and First Spanish-American Construction History Congress in Segovia, Spain during the month of October, 2015.
PHOTO: Conservation Architects Nelson Melero and Beatriz del Cueto at the Horatio Rubens Palace, a four-story high concrete block structure built in 1905 located in Mariel Cuba.