MIAMI, United States. – The National Council of Cultural Heritage of Cuba awarded this Tuesday the National Prize for Restoration of Monuments to the Fidel Castro Ruz Center, an institution to study, investigate and disseminate the life and work of the deceased Cuban dictator.
According to official media, the distinction recognizes the integral quality of the intervention carried out on the property, which recovered its former splendor. The jury’s report also highlighted the high level of creativity and the incorporation of contemporary elements in the surrounding areas.
The work was developed by the company Restaura, specialized in architecture and urbanism projects with a high impact on the preservation of heritage, attached to the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana.
In November 2021, after three years of construction and in the midst of an unprecedented economic and health crisis, the Cuban regime inaugurated the Fidel Castro Ruz Center inside a restored mansion from the late 19th century, located in Vedado, Havana.
The restoration works of the Center began after the approval by the National Assembly of People’s Power of the Law No. 123 “On the use of the name and figure of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz”in 2016.
Despite the fact that his will was that public places or institutions bear his name, nor that monuments or busts be erected in his memory, the cult of the dictator’s image is perceived in every corner of the institution.
The Center is equipped with high technology, based on the indoctrination of children, adolescents and young people.
The institution has nine exhibition halls, a library and various meeting rooms. In addition, it has an amphitheater and a garden with benches, lights, USB ports and QR codes that refer to the institution’s website.
The building, from the end of the 19th century, belonged to Enrique Conill Refecas, a captain of the Liberation Army in the War of Independence of 1895. It was chosen as the headquarters of the Fidel Castro Ruz Center after the proposal of the late Havana historian, Eusebio Leal Spengler. .
The Center was inaugurated on November 25, 2021, on the fifth anniversary of Castro’s death. The ceremony had the surprise presence of the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.
In the act, closed to the international media, the ruler of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, and former president Raúl Castro also participated.
