Online Screening:
Unfinished Spaces

May 15 – May 29, 2020

02 Unfinished Spaces 1 ©Paolo Gasparini
Ajna Films izniyle <i>Unfinished Spaces</i> [Tamamlanmamış Mekânlar] (2011)
©Paolo Gasparini
Unfinished Spaces (2011), courtesy Ajna Films
Unfinished Spaces (2011)
Directors: Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray
86 minutes
Spanish and English; Turkish and English subtitles

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. Construction of their radical designs began immediately and the school’s first classes soon followed. Dancers, musicians and artists from all over the country revealed in the beauty of the schools, but as the dream of the Revolution quickly became a reality, construction was abruptly halted and the architects 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.

Including extensive archival footage as well as interviews with architects Ricardo Porro, Roberto Gottardi and Vittorio Garatti on how they aimed to create a new architecture language and why their designs fell into disfavor, the 2011 documentary film Unfinished Spaces is streaming online at saltonline.org between May 15-29.
Share
ADD TO CALENDAR