Identity elements
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Collection
Title
Eugenio Batista Collection
Date(s)
Extent
10 Boxes
Name of creator
Biographical history
Eugenio Batista (1900-1992) was a Cuban architect and author who worked in Cuba in the 20th century.
Batista completed high school courses in the United States and Cuba and received an architecture degree from the University of Havana in 1924. He moved on to work as a draftsman at the architecture firm of Walker and Gillette while taking summer and evening classes at Columbia University in New York, eventually graduating with a Master of Fine Arts in Architecture from Princeton University and working as a professor there before returning to Cuba to practice his profession in 1939.
Batista was involved in such projects as the building of the Bay of Havana amphitheater; the placement of the José Martí statue in the Parque Central; the design of the church and park at Yumurí; and the renovation of Havana's Payret Theater. He was professor and acting dean of the School of Architecture at Havana’s St. Thomas of Villanova Catholic University in the 1950s, and worked as a professor in design at various schools after his exile in 1961 including the University of Oregon and the University of Puerto Rico. In 1974 he was given a Fulbright scholarship to teach architecture at the Pontifical Xavierian University in Bogotá, Colombia.
In his retirement he wrote a book on church architecture and the history of the Catholic liturgy titled El culto cristiano: ¿ceremonia o dedicación? (1981). He was a founding member of the Hermandad Nazaret, an exile religious organization.
Batista died in Miami at the age of 91.
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
The Eugenio Batista Collection contains essays, manuscripts, correspondence, clippings, photographs and original architectural drawings, blueprints and documents of Eugenio Batista (1900-1992), a Cuban architect active in 20th century Cuba and the United States.
The collection contains Batista's personal and professional papers related to his activities as a professor and Dean of Architecture at the St. Thomas of Villanova Catholic University in Havana and other universities throughout the United States, as well as material related to his book on Church architecture and the history of the Catholic liturgy.
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use elements
Conditions governing access
This collection is currently in processing. At this time, Boxes 4 and 10 are not open for research.
Physical access
Technical access
Conditions governing reproduction
Requests to publish or display materials from this collection require written permission from the rights owner. Please, contact chc@miami.edu for more information.
Preferred citation: Eugenio Batista Collection, Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida.
Languages of the material
- Spanish
Scripts of the material
Language and script notes
Finding aids
Generated finding aid
Acquisition and appraisal elements
Custodial history
Immediate source of acquisition
Gift of Graciella Batista, 1992 and 1994.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information
Accruals
Related materials elements
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related archival materials
Related descriptions
Notes element
General note
Other Information:
Rights Statement:
The text of this webpage is available for modification and reuse under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation License (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts).
Specialized notes
Alternative identifier(s)
Description control element
Rules or conventions
Sources used
Archivist's note
Collection-level record added by Amanda Moreno, January 2014. Updated by Rebeca Gonzalez, May 2021.