Unfinished Spaces (Havana, Cuba)
(2011, Directors Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray, 86 minutes)
Cuba's ambitious National Art Schools project, designed by three young architects in the wake of Castro's Revolution, is neglected, nearly forgotten, then ultimately rediscovered as a visionary architectural masterpiece. In 1961, the 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 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.
*Screened in glorious High Definition