Vaulting Ambition: Rafael Guastavino and the Creation of America’s Great Spaces

FAIN: LC-50009-06

Boston Public Library (Boston, MA 02116-2813)
Deirdre Brennan (Project Director: September 2005 to May 2007)

Consultation with scholars and staff to explore themes and archival materials for a traveling exhibition and programs about architect Rafael Guastavino and his work in several United States cities.

The Boston Public Library (BPL), in collaboration with the Department of Architecture of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), requests $10,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support the development of the project Vaulting Ambition: Rafael Guastavino and the Creation of America’s Great Spaces. This major 2008 public exhibition project will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of the Spanish immigrant, Rafael Guastavino (1842-1908), arguably the most influential, but now nearly forgotten, master-builder of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America.