Rafael Calventi Gaviño (18 March 1932 – 19 August 2018) was a Dominican architect and diplomat.

Early life

Calventi was born in La Vega,

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...

, to Juana Cintrón Gaviño (her father was a Galician colonist in Puerto Rico) and Arturo Calventi Suárez (1883–1968), both Puerto Rican immigrants. Calventi studied at the

Sapienza University of Rome The Sapienza University of Rome ( it, Sapienza – Università di Roma), also called simply Sapienza or the University of Rome, and formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a Public university, public research university l ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, where he was a pupil of

Pier Luigi Nervi Pier Luigi Nervi (21 June 1891 – 9 January 1979) was an Italian engineer and architect. He studied at the University of Bologna graduating in 1913. Nervi taught as a professor of engineering at Rome University from 1946 to 1961 and is known wor ...

and obtained the title of Doctor of Architecture. After his graduation he worked in the studios of

Marcel Breuer Marcel Lajos Breuer ( ; 21 May 1902 – 1 July 1981), was a Hungarian-born modernist architect and furniture designer. At the Bauhaus he designed the Wassily Chair and the Cesca Chair, which ''The New York Times'' have called some of the most im ...

and

I.M. Pei Ieoh Ming Pei
– website of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners ( ; ; April 26, 1917 – May 16, 2019) was ...

in New York and

Pierre Dufau Pierre Dufau (21 June 1908 – 26 September 1985) was a French architect. He is particularly known for his work on the reconstruction of Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; pcd, Anmien, or ) is a city and commune in northern France, located ...

in Paris. He is considered to have been a representative architect of the modernist movement in

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

Career

In 1962 Calventi began his professional practice in

Santo Domingo , total_type = Total , population_density_km2 = auto , timezone = AST (UTC −4) , area_code_type = Area codes , area_code = 809, 829, 849 , postal_code_type = Postal codes , postal_code = 10100–10699 (Distrito Nacional) , websi ...

, Dominican Republic, standing out as a designer and educator, with the axis of a group of young architects. In addition, he joined the University Renewal Movement (1965), composed of professors, students, and employees of the

University of Santo Domingo A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...

, which managed to modernize the academic standards of the institution and democratize access to higher education in the Dominican Republic. Following this the School of Architecture was created from the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo and he became its first director, between 1966 and 1968. There he was a professor of Architectural Composition and Theory of Architecture. He was also one of the founders of the Technological Institute of Santo Domingo (INTEC) in the 1972. Foremost in reknowb among Calventi's completed structures is the headquarters for Banco Central de Reublica Dominicana in Santo Domingo which was realized in 1978. The building has been described as belonging to the

Brutalism Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...

genre of architectural design. In the public service sector he served as Deputy Director of the Office of the National District of Urban Planning and Design Chief of the Directorate of Buildings in the Ministry of Public Works and Communications of the Dominican Republic (SEOPEC). In 2005 he received a Special Tribute for his life's work from the Dominican Chamber of Construction. In 1997 he was a member of the National Commission on Urban Affairs of the Dominican Republic (CONAU) and was also a member of the Executive Committee of Cultural Heritage of the Dominican Republic. He was a member of the French Academy of Architecture and of the Dominican College Engineers, Architects and Surveyors (CODIA).

Diplomat

In 1996 Calventi joined the Dominican diplomatic corps and thereafter served as the Dominican ambassador to Italy, Mexico, Argentina and lastly Germany. In Rome he was permanent representative of the Dominican Government to the

United Nations World Food Programme The World Food Programme; it, Programma alimentare mondiale; es, Programa Mundial de Alimentos; ar, برنامج الأغذية العالمي, translit=barnamaj al'aghdhiat alealami; russian: Всемирная продовольствен� ...

(WFP) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); Dominican Government Delegate to the Italo-Latin American Institute (ILAI). In 2000 he received the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy. In Argentina in 2009 he was awarded the Order of the Liberator San Martin, Grand Cross.

References

External links