RECOVERING THE PAST

  Summary: At the moment, the rescue of some offices makes possible new faces for old cities.

A la izquierda, momento de la restauracion
de la escuela. A la derecha,el centro ya reparado.

By Isabelle
Photo: Wildy

The Historical Center of Havana has acquired a renewed air for several years now. Thanks to restoration, their old buildings are being renovated and many signs of the passage of the years are left behind.

For more than a decade, hundreds of young students from the Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos School-Workshop in Havana fill their old rooms, because to restore aged doors, windows, pipes and walls is their responsibility.


The beginnings of a project
In Spain, in the middle of the 80´s in the last century, the necessity to fight against unemployment generates a project. Young people who were unemployed begin to approach the art of the job, and dedicated themselves to recover ancient buildlings.

The idea fructifies, and on the occasion of the anniversary 500 of the encounter between two cultures it extends to those Latin American where there was a Spanish presence.


Under these principles the School-Workshop of Havana is founded, in 1992, with the collaboration of the Spanish Agency of International Development Cooperation (AECI) and the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana (OHC). The agreement was effective until 2003, when it began to be sponsored by the last organization.


The school on the inside
The School-Workshop of Havana shows a lot of activity. The coming and going of the students are usual: some carrying a bucket with cement; others, white by the use of some material, but all of them buried themselves in the practices of the job. And it is that, from its beginnings, the institution applies the principle of learning working. For this reason, 25% of the time id dedicated to receive theoretical knowledge in the classroom, while 75% is used in the links with factories or different works.


Without question, Old of Havana´s architecture seduces. The center tries to perpetuate the passion for each piece of street or wall through an accurate reaining program. The old secrets on materials and ways of building are revealed the future bricklayers, carpenters, glaziers, restorers in stone.


Mathematics, Technical Drawing, History of Architecture, General Culture and Practices of the Specialty are some of the subjects that contribute to the curricular training.

For two years, under the advising of a qualified staff, the students receive the knowledge they need to graduate as qualified workers in restoration. Once the period of learning is finished, the colonial part of the Cuban capital will be the main labor destiny of the graduates.


According to the director of the institution, engineer Eduardo González Delgado, the school guarantees jobs, because the courses or workshps are called following the needs of the different companies dedicated to restoration.

Day by day the students practice even the minimum learned detail. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for which they form a very demanded staff.


The Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos School-Workshop, since its foundation, has taken part in more than 60 works, including the Historical Center of Old Havana mainly. When walking by Old Havana, beautiful details that are hidden hidden by the great age are visible again.


Thanks to these young people, the old part of the city has got in full dress again, perpetuating the past.