Beyond the National Art Schools

Abstract

The story of the rise and fall of thin-tile vaulting in Cuba after the revolution has always focused on the National Art Schools in Havana, which are typically presented by the scholarly literature as an anomaly in the history of modern Cuban construction. But as M. Wesam Al Asali, Dania González Couret, and Michael H. Ramage show in Beyond the National Art Schools: Thin-Tile Vaulting in Cuba after the Revolution, from 1960 to 1965, the Ministry of Construction (MICONS), led by architect Juan Campos Almanza (1930–2007), built many experimental structures featuring thin-tile vaulting. These designs attest to an innovative architectural program that envisioned the systematic use of thin-tile vaulting at a national scale for houses, schools, recreational structures, and industrial buildings. Drawing on extensive research in the MICONS archives, as well as site visits, interviews, and digital modeling, this investigation provides a nuanced account of the history of architecture in postrevolutionary Cuba. As the authors argue, thin-tile vaulting offered an ingenious and effective solution for a complex range of projects, balancing traditional craft with new technology, allowing for a wide range of different scales, and depending on only local, everyday materials.