“Thesis projects, diploma works, books, catalogs and a countless documents” are “indiscriminately scattered as simple garbage,” denounced a former ISDI student.
Miami, United States. – Part of the documentary legacy of the Higher Institute of Design (ISDI) appeared spread as a waste on Monday in Carlos J. Finlay park and the surrounding streets, in Havana, old students of the school and activists denounced on Facebook. In The disseminated photos Books, catalogs and thesis are observed among garbage tanks in the vicinity of the institution.
The Stepan Aquino Internet user, who indicates on his Facebook profile he studied at the ISDI, story that on the morning of Monday he witnessed something that filled him with “sadness.” As he wrote, “Carlos J. Finlay’s park currently serves as a landfill for the archives and library” of the ISDI, “whose property has remained silently dying for so long.”
Aquino added that “thesis projects, diploma works, books, catalogs and a countless documents” are “indiscriminately scattered as simple garbage” and “lie today adorning the park.” “These files were, and they are, the historical and technical reference for the academic training of the students,” he said.
In his publication, the former student also cited article 4.1 of the Decree 88 of industrial and visual communication design He questioned the efforts for the defense of academic memory on the island.
“I really do not know who are inside that building, I don’t know what they do and less what the destination that the property takes, but I consider that being ignorant does not imply being insensitive. Not knowing is not synonymous with disrespect.” And then he added: “I wonder what is the motivation that pushes these people who, supposedly, were formed with principles based on respect for social property, education and culture and what values are we talking about?”
Aquino’s publication It was reproduced By the state newspaper Cubadebate in its section “From the networks”. However, the medium did not add extra information. So far, neither the ISDI nor the Ministry of Higher Education of Cuba have spoken about the complaints.
The Academic Freedom Observatory (OLA, Independiente) did condemned on Facebook “the dilapidation of the bibliographic fund of the Higher Design Institute.” According to that organization, “before the collapse of the property that the institution intended for the teaching of design in the country, the ruins have become improvised dump.”
The wave also expressed “deep disgust” for what he considers “another sample of the devaluation of Cuban academic heritage”, which would also have also occurred “in another teaching library of the University of Havana – UH.”
Finally, the Observatory urged, “once again, to the fulfillment of the social commission that corresponds to the nomenclature of the Higher Education System, directly responsible for the neglect that diminishes the quality of the Cuban University.”
Also on Facebook, Professor Luis Fidel Acosta Machado reacted with irony and concern: “And after what happened in the ISDI I can say without mistake that the next hotel will be ready in a very short time. I dare to guess to the name: Gran Hotel Design or Great Hotel Designers. It is terrible what happens and continues to happen …”.
In March 2022, the ISDI authorities They announced the closure of several teaching facilities of the building due to “a complicated architectural failure”.
The Higher Institute of Design (former Higher Institute of Industrial Design) opened in 1984 in the property that is now abandoned (originally built in 1860 and expanded with a third level in the 1930s).
In July 2024, the ISDI area that was underpinned and closed since mid -2022 collapse. Later, in January of this year, another part of the building collapsed. As a consequence, an old woman, 78, a neighbor of the property, had to be hospitalized. The rubble also blocked the entry of four families into their homes.
