Dr. Juan Ignacio del Cueto Ruiz-Funes

He was born in Mexico City on February 16, 1961. He is an architect from the Facultad de Arquitectura (FA) of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM, 1986) and has a Doctorate in Architecture from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC, 1996). His doctoral thesis Arquitectos españoles exiliados en México received the Extraordinary Doctorate Award from the UPC. He is the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at UNAM and a Full-time Researcher in the Center for Research in Architecture, Urbanism and Landscape (CIAUP). He is a member of the National System of Researchers since 2004 and a category D Member of the Performance Premium Program for Full-Time Academic Staff (PRIDE). Specialized in the History of Architecture of the 20th century, he has led five projects of the Support Program for Research and Technological Innovation Projects (PAPIIT-DGAPA) and an IXTLI Project, in which he was responsible for scholarly interns and Social Service workers.

Dr. Cueto is the coordinator of the Max Cetto Workshop (2000-2005) and CIAUP (2014-2019), as well as founder and editor of Bitácora-Arquitectura magazine (1999-2004). He has been a member of the Reviewing Commission of the Degree in Architecture, of the Editorial Committee of the FA-UNAM, of the Academic Council of the Association of Institutions of Teaching of Architecture of the Mexican Republic (ASINEA) and is a representative of the CIAUP of the Technical Council of the FA-UNAM (position that he has recently re-occupied). He participates in the University Seminar for Research in Artistic Creation (SUICREA) and in the University Seminar for Research on Cultural Heritage (SUIP).

His academic career spans over 25 years at the FA-UNAM, where he is now de Dean and has been a Professor in the Departments of Projects and Theory-History-Research and has taught Graduate Seminars, History of Architecture Surveys III (20th Century) and the elective courses such as Historical Evolution of Structural Technology and Evolution of Contemporary Structural Systems. He has supervised more than 120 undergraduate theses, been an adviser and co-adviser of postgraduate theses (specialization, master’s and doctorate) and overseen postdoctoral fellowships at CIAUP. He is part of the Committee for the Specialization in Light Roof Design of the Unique Program of Specializations in Architecture (PUEA).

He was a visiting professor at the School of Architecture of the University of Puerto Rico (January 2005 to June 2006), the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Mexico City (ITESM-CCM, 1998-2004) and the National School of Conservation, Restoration and Museography (ENCRyM-INAH, 2007-2009). He has taught courses and conferences in several countries, and has participated as a thesis advisor and jury in postgraduate examinations in national and foreign institutions.

Dean Cueto the author and co-author of several books, book chapters, and specialized articles. His books Félix Candela 1910-2010 (Madrid, 2010), Candela Guide (Arquine-UNAM, Mexico, 2013) and Spanish Architects Exiled in Mexico (Bonilla Artigas Editores-UNAM, Mexico, 2014) have been finalists in three Ibero-American Architecture Biennials and Urbanism. He has co-authored Displaced Architectures. Architectures of Spanish Exile (Madrid, 2007), recipient of the Julius Posener Award from the International Union of Architects (Turin, 2008), has co-edited Candela, Isler, Müther. Positions on Shell Construction (Birkhäuser Verlag, Switzerland, 2020) and edited the book La estela de Félix Candela. Shells of reinforced concrete in Mexico and the world (in press), in which he is also an author.

He has participated in congresses, given courses and conferences in sixteen different countries, and has organized numerous national and international academic meetings, among them the Third Hispano-American Congress of Construction History (III CHAHC-CDMX) in 2019. He has participated as member of scientific committees for various international congresses. In times of pandemic, he was behind the organization of remote activities with wide repercussions, such as the seminar “Revaluing the work of Félix Candela” (National Academy of Architecture) and the course “Félix Candela: the shell builder and his wake” (DECAD-FA). He was an advisory curator to the exhibition “Displaced Architectures. Architectures of Spanish exile” (Madrid, 2007) and the curator of the exhibitions “Félix Candela 1910-2010”, presented in Spain, Mexico and New York; “Cascarones de Candela / Candela’s Shells” (2012) exhibited in Mexico, Guatemala and the United States; and “Presence of Spanish exile in Mexican architecture” (2014) inaugurated at the National Museum of Architecture of the Palacio de Bellas Artes and presented at various other venues in the country. He was also part of the curatorial team of the exhibitions “CIAUP 50 Years” (FA, 2017), “Escenarios de Transformación, Arquitectos UNAM 1969-2015” in 2018 and “Arcadio Artís, Fuerza Sutil” in 2019, both in MUCA.

He currently coordinates the group “Rescate Manantiales” that calls for the conservation of Félix Candela’s most famous work— Los Manantiales de Xochimilco Restaurantand which has gained the support from the National Reconstruction Program (PNR). He has worked on his own for the FA-UNAM Liaison Coordination and collaborated with architects Imanol Ordorika Bengoechea and Carlos Ortega Viramontes and in the Bosch-Cuspinera Associats Office in Barcelona. In 2019 he was appointed an Emeritus Member of the National Academy of Architecture, of which he has been a full member since 2013. In 2011 he received the “Juan O’Gorman Award for Professional Merit for Research” from CAM-SAM. In 1997 he was awarded the CONACYT Grant to join FA-UNAM as a full-time researcher after being a Fellow of the Ibero-American Cooperation Institute (ICI) to carry out his doctoral studies in Barcelona.

Dean Cueto is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM), of the IASS (International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures), of DOCOMOMO-México, of the Advisory Council of the Editorial of the CSIC (Spain) and of the editorial committee of the magazines Vitruvius.com (Brazil) and Construction History Magazine (Spain). He participated in the Governing Board of Colegio Madrid AC (2010-2019) and was vice president of the Ateneo Español de México AC (2011-2017).