By Rebecca Díaz-Atienza
Suddenly, the vision changed.
Unfinished Spaces is a documentary
that presents Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray’s rendition of the story of the
Forgotten Cuban Art Schools. Their history is presented through a chronological
account of interlaced stories of politics, economics, war, and art. Archived
video clips of Cuba’s history accompanied by interviews and narrations of the
architects involved in the design and construction of these schools, take the
viewers on a quest of optimism, bewilderment,
sadness, and hopelessness.
At the end of the Cuban revolution
in 1959, the new government was eager to start new projects, as would any
country seeking to demonstrate its pride on its victory. The original idea to
create new art schools in Cuba came from Fidel Castro himself reflecting the
utopian optimism of the Revolution. Ricardo Porro, an architect and sculptor,
was instantly contacted and given two months for the design of the schools.
Vittorio Garatti and Roberto Gottardi joined forces with Porro, and with help
from art students started the project. The complete design consisted of 5
schools of art: the School of Modern Dance, the School of Plastic Arts (by
Porro), the School of Dramatic Arts (by Gottardi), the School of Music, and the
School of Ballet (by Garatti). All the schools were being designed and constructed
at the same time. They were supposed to be examples of socialist architecture,
with innovative and open designs that reacted against the International Style
that was developing around the world. They would become exemplary Cuban
Architecture, architecture of the Revolution.
Soon after the project started, so
did the embargo and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The material supply for the
project became very limited, as did the possible construction systems, because
educational funds were redirected to the military. This did nothing to stop the
energy that motivated the project, but would certainly cause it to take longer,
long enough for the vision to suddenly change. As systematizing and pre-fabrication
became the norm in the Soviet Union, Cuba’s ideal shifted. Individual
architecture was prohibited, and pre-fabrication would take its place. Architects
were viewed as bourgeois, elitists in search of personal gain, instead of
communal. Construction of the schools was stopped in 1965, with only Porro’s
schools finished. The schools became abandoned and only used clandestinely by
young artists and students.
