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Unfinished Spaces

UR rating icon
Architecture & Design (collection) • 1h 26m

Directed by Alysa Nahmias, Benjamin Murray • Documentary • 2012 • 86 minutes

Cuba's ambitious National Art Schools project, designed by three young artists, Ricardo Porro, Vittorio Garatti, and Roberto Gottardi, in the wake of Castro's Revolution, is neglected, nearly forgotten, then ultimately rediscovered as a visionary architectural masterpiece.

In 1961, three young, visionary architects were commissioned by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to create Cuba's National Art Schools on the grounds of a former golf course in Havana, Cuba. Construction of their radical designs began immediately and the school's first classes soon followed. Dancers, musicians and artists from all over the country reveled in the beauty of the schools, but as the dream of the Revolution quickly became a reality, construction was abruptly halted and the architects and their designs were deemed irrelevant in the prevailing political climate. Forty years later the schools are in use, but remain unfinished and decaying. Castro has invited the exiled architects back to finish their unrealized dream.

UNFINISHED SPACES features intimate footage of Fidel Castro, showing his devotion to creating a worldwide showcase for art, and it also documents the struggle and passion of three revolutionary artists.

Tags
20th century, alicia alonso, americas, anthropology and archaeology, architectural masterpiece, architecture, area studies, art, art and architecture, art history, batista, bullfrog films, cannon vaults, caribbean, castro's revolution, catalan vaults, che guevara, cuba, cuba's national art schools, cuban missile crisis, cultural and ethnic studies, cultural anthropology, doc, documentary, expository, fidel castro, havana, history, human rights, john loomis, latin american history, latin american studies, latinx studies, ministry of construction, ministry of culture, ovid, performing arts, politics, purge, revolution of forms, ricardo porro, roberto gottardi, school of ballet, school of dramatic arts, school of modern dance, school of music, school of plastic arts, selma diaz, social issues, sociology, soviet architecture, soviet prefabrication, soviet union, the, the politics of art, unfinished spaces, vittorio garatti, wifredo lam, world history, world monuments fund, world regions

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