UM News

Victor Deupi

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (January 3, 2017)—Victor Deupi, a Cuban-American teacher of architectural history and theory, design and representation at the School of Architecture, has been elected president of the CINTAS Foundation, which promotes the professional development of Cuban architects, writers, musicians, and visual artists.

“Mr. Deupi brings a new perspective with his distinct background while maintaining an emphatic commitment to each of the four disciplines supported by the foundation,” the organization said in announcing its fifth president.

Deupi, who received a B.S. in architecture from the University of Virginia, a M.S. in architecture from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, previously taught at Fairfield University, the New York Institute of Technology, the University of Notre Dame, and the Prince of Wales’s Institute of Architecture in London. He also has been a “Visiting Critic” at the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech.

The principal focus of his research is on the art and architecture of the early modern Ibero-American world, and mid-20th-century Cuba. His book, Architectural Temperance: Spain and Rome, 1700-1759, was published by Routledge in 2015, and he is currently curating exhibitions on Cuban Architects at Home and in Exile: The Modernist Generation at the Coral Gables Museum, and Emilio Sanchez in South Florida Collections at the Lowe Art Museum.

He is also editing a book on Transformations in Classical Architecture: New Directions in Research and Practice that is being published by Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers, 2017.

The CINTAS Foundation, established in 1963 with funds from the estate of Oscar B. Cintas (1887-1957), former Cuban ambassador to the United States, has awarded more than 300 fellowships and grants to Cuban artists achieving national and international renown. Several UM faculty members, including Jorge Hernandez, Jose Gelabert-Navia, Tomas Lopez-Gottardi, and Andres Duany, have been among the recipients.

In 2011, the foundation entered into an extended loan with Miami-Dade College’s MDC Museum of Art and Design of nearly 300 pieces by artists of Cuban descent living outside Cuba who have received prestigious CINTAS Fellowships. The museum is housed at the landmark Freedom Tower in downtown Miami.