The current ruin of Higher Institute of Industrial Design (ISDI) It is the chronicle of a death foretold. The most recent of its collapses, just a few days agois just one more episode in a sad story that could have been avoided and that has deprived Havana—and Cuban education in general—of an emblematic site not only for its columns and walls.
Although for some years now the now demolished building – located in Belascoaín, between Estrella and Maloja, Centro Habana – has not hosted classes or the movement of teachers and students, for many it continues to be the ISDI and always will be. Their loss is, therefore, a pain that transcends the university community to penetrate deeply into its neighborhood and throughout the Cuban capital.
Inaugurated in 1860 as a Military Hotel and Officers’ Club, the building went through multiple uses before housing the ISDI: it was an asylum for widows and orphans, headquarters of the General Staff of the American troops and later of the Ministry of Public Health. In 1984 it became the headquarters of the institute, adapted with new levels and a theater that overloaded its original structure.
The deterioration was accelerated by its intensive use, lack of maintenance and ultimately failed work. Thus, it had to close its doors in 2022 due to a “complicated architectural failure” that ended up taking its toll and causing several collapses that have affected the surrounding streets and homes and, with their barrage of debris, have diluted any promise of salvation.
With more than three thousand professionals graduated in more than 40 years, the ISDI has had to travel through various spaces since its closure and has followed from a distance the debacle of its historic headquarters. Last year Its definitive transfer to a polytechnic located in Playa was announced, although to do so that building had to be renovated first, so its final move could still take a while.
The ruin of the old building is not only an architectural loss: it dispersed and lost files, thesis projects and materials that were a reference for Cuban design. For graduates and teachers, the collapse symbolizes the abandonment of a space of innovation and training that marked generations, in a neighborhood of Central Havana where widespread deterioration was already the norm.
In the very difficult scenario that Cuba is going through today, aggravated by increasing pressure from the United States on the island, the ISDI case summarizes the magnitude of the crisis: lack of resources for restorations, overloading and collapse of historic buildings and the difficulty of sustaining key educational centers when the country faces long blackouts, high inflation and a severe shortage of materials.
What remains of the old ISDI is a painful ruin, the vestiges of sustained deterioration while its neighbors live between resignation and fear of what may fall. In this way, it becomes a metaphor for a Havana that is losing pieces of its constructive heritage, a regrettable reality that the photojournalist presents to us today with his lens. Otmaro Rodríguez.
