The amount of investment made by the Cuban Government in the brand new Fidel Castro Ruz Center, in Havana’s Vedado, whose works were in charge of the Office of the Historian of Havana (OHCH), is a mystery that has no signs of being revealed . “And even if it comes out, it will be very opaque, the final number will never come out,” he tells 14ymedio a young architect who knows the subject and who prefers anonymity.
However, the professional is sure of something: “There were excesses.” As an example, he says that “they spent a lot on adocretes that they didn’t use later and they had to see where they put them.” That was the origin, he says, of the cobblestones with which they paved part of the gardens of the Avenue of the Presidents, also known as Calle G, the central Calle Línea and other places, such as Calle A in several of its sections.
“All that adocrete came from there,” says the architect. “I remember when they finished the little interior streets of the house, that they pallets of adocretes lying there, and boom, the solution was to remove the little grass from the separator of Linea Street. “
“I remember when they finished the little interior streets of the house, that they had the pallets of adocretes lying there, and bum, the solution was to remove the little grass from the separator of Linea street”
Several of those works raised, in the summer of 2020, a dust on social networks between architects and ordinary people from Havana, for eliminating the characteristic green of those streets and replacing them with the gray of concrete.
So much so that the authorities had to come out to give explanations. The Official version Given then, it was that the replacement was made for “pedestrian safety” and thus removed “some dirt from the dirt and grass on the street.”
The architect consulted by this newspaper also details that the Department of Rehabilitation and Heritage Conservation of the OHCH, directed by Norma Pérez-Trujillo, is the same one that is carrying out the restoration of the Santa Clara convent and that it will be in charge, soon, of the restoration in the Palace of the Revolution.
For “interior design and paneling,” he refers, they hired the services of private sector workers
For “interior design and paneling,” he refers, they hired the services of private sector workers.
He says that all the landscaping of the Fidel Castro Ruz Center, as well as the proposal of trees and vegetation, was carried out by the specialists of the Botanical Garden. “The flowerbeds were very beautiful, in the style of the original El Vedado,” he says. “The trees that they put in respect the heights and other necessary characteristics, such as that they do not give off resins or that their leaves or fruits and seeds can damage the pavement. It is a pleasure to pass by, if it were not for the aura that the building has as such” , ironizes.
The Center was inaugurated last Thursday with a play by a children’s group and with the presence of the Cuban government’s staff, as well as Nicolás Maduro and Raúl Castro.
Although he specifically refused to answer the question about the cost of the opulent work that the international press made him, the head of Preservation of the Documentary Heritage of the Palace of the Revolution, Alberto Albariño, only said that a good part of the investment was covered with “donations that they were received from other countries “, without specifying, and that for that reason it did not suppose a great expense for the State.
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