Author: Madeleine Sautié | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

With the bliss stamped on his face, Dr. Eusebio Leal Spengler spoke to the press yesterday to announce the good news about the revival of the old Convent of Santa Clara, building of the seventeenth century, now erected as the Center for Academic Training in Arts and Crafts of the Restoration and Conservation of the Heritage of Cuba, the Caribbean and the Antilles.

From the eve of Havana's birthday, at six in the afternoon, this project sponsored by the European Union and Unesco can be attended, when they begin to arrive at their premises "the small guided tours", which you can admire in the inside the place a series of objects that over the years were rescued by archaeologists "to make the work of Santa Clara and its annex, Santa Teresa, all this, university fields of the College of San Gerónimo", where a course will be taken new career that will allow the young people of the workshop school, with «sincere and demonstrated vocation, to study and devote themselves to this arduous and difficult work that is archeology», explained the Historian of the City.

Located between the streets of Sol, Cuba, Luz and Habana, the Center, once "huge monacal complex", which houses the mythical Casa del Marino - where an anchor replica has been placed - will be a meeting point for the public with history

In his emotional verb there was no lack of gratitude to companies and institutions, without whose extraordinary effort it would not have been possible to turn "this hopeless disaster" into a space where cultural activities will also take place, and especially thanked Katherine Müller Marin, director of the Office Regional of Culture for Latin America and the Caribbean of Unesco, "a woman who knows how to dream" (present at the event).

He also recognized Gladys Collazo Usallán, president of the National Cultural Heritage Council, and Dr. Félix Julio Alfonso, who will be in charge of the San Gerónimo College, along with another group of professors, to design the curriculum of the race, which must contemplate ancient languages, archeology ... "as well as the ways of building and the ways of doing things."

Leal, also grateful to the capital authorities in the name of his first Party Secretary Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, and Reinaldo García and Tatiana Viera, president and vice president of the Provincial Assembly of Havana, also announced the next opening of two libraries: a children's one, located on Reina Street, where books "from all corners of the earth" are beginning to arrive, and is located in what was the home of the outstanding bibliographer Antonio Bachiller y Morales, and the other, of Architecture, which will be the great library of the great Cuban architects. A design center called Roberto Gottardi, in honor of the notable architect based in Cuba, will also be inaugurated - to fill "the voids of gratitude" -.

With comments of "I am a person of hopes and work" and "I am very happy" the historian gave way to other voices that reported the events that will accompany Havana in its upcoming galas.

A GOYA SELF PORTRAIT IN CUBA FOR HAVANA'S PARTY

A self-portrait of Francisco de Goya (1746-1828), dating from 1815, will arrive in Cuba through a loan from the Museo Nacional del Prado, in Madrid, to be exposed during the visit of the kings of Spain to the Cuban capital , reported the acn.

The cultural attaché of the Spanish Embassy in the country, Jorge Peralta, explained to the press agency that the famous piece will be enjoyed by his Majesties Felipe vi, the King, and his wife, Queen Doña Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano, on the 13th and November 14, when the highest representatives of the Spanish Royal House made an official visit to Cuba for the first time.

The event takes place to greet Havana's 500th anniversary, and will be exhibited in the Temporary Room on the fourth floor of the Universal Art Building of the National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA).

It is an exceptional operation, since it takes place in the bicentenary of the Prado Museum, where a restrictive policy of the loan of pieces is applied, to keep most of its collection in the property, due to the anniversary, Peralta explained.

Jorge Fernández, director of the MNBA, argued that the Goya team responds to being an artist very close to history and to the foundation of the art academy in Cuba, San Alejandro ».

MORE OPEN DOORS TO FIT THE CAPITAL

• Today, at nine o'clock at night, the entire entrance of the Plaza de Armas, the Palace of the Second Cape and the Castle of the Royal Force will be illuminated.
• A hot air balloon will be placed in the Plaza Vieja for an hour as part of the Belgian Culture Week in Havana.
• As part of the Italian Culture Week, celebrated in the capital these days, a stone from the city of Vinci will be exhibited in the Castle of Atarés.
• For Friday 8, in the morning, exhibition halls will be inaugurated in the old Artistic and Literary Lyceum of Havana.
• At 11:00 am. in the Calle de Madera of the Plaza de Armas, the magazine Opus Habana will be presented.
• At 5:00 pm. The inauguration will take place in the gates of the Castillo de la Real Fuerza, a tribute of the artists to Havana.
• Liuba María Hevia concert, at eight in the evening, in the Plaza de San Francisco de Asís.
• On Sunday 10 the foundational villas will pay tribute to Havana from a colloquium in the Palace of the Second Cape and through parades, representing the identity characteristics of each town, which will conclude in the Old Square.
• The exhibition From my Havana, from Zaida del Río, will open at the Carmen Montilla house, while Abela and Rancaño will recreate the paintings of the Templete, in the Lombillo Palace.
•  At 9:45 a.m. Antonio Bachiller y Morales library will reopen on Reina Street.
• A Cultural Program will be held in the Multipurpose Room, in the upper San José warehouse.
• The Firefighters Museum will be inaugurated.
• By Monday 11, the Cristina Museum will be inaugurated at the Cuatro Caminos Complex, with all the rail heritage that exists in the country, compiled by the Office of the City Historian.
• The convent of San Francisco de Asís will exhibit a new facade and restoration in the south cloister, while in the government building of the Historic Center a new hemicycle: the Hall of Lost Steps, and the Literacy Museum will open its doors that day , next to the Automobile Museum that will exhibit an exhibition of old cars and motorcycles, on San Ignacio Street.
• In the Museum of the city, the Multipurpose Hall will open with the projection of an audiovisual on the role of the Palace in each of its periods in the political and social life of Havana.
• From the 10th until the 24th of November, the Classic Havana Festival will be held.
• For Thursday 14 will be the inauguration of the Castle of Atarés, with the exhibition of inventions of Da Vinci, the Design Center on San Ignacio Street and the Paper Binding Workshop.
• Inauguration of the new location of the monument to General Calixto García, at the 5th roundabout. Avenue.
• On Friday 15, at 9:00 p.m., it will be the traditional ceremony back to Ceiba, with the presence of Eusebio Leal to announce other celebrations that will start at that time.
• On Saturday 16 the south wing of the National Capitol and the rooms will be inaugurated: National Symbols, Hall of Constitutions and Monographic Hall.
• At nine o'clock at night the dome and the lantern of the Capitol will be lit, as well as its exterior lighting.
• A video clip of the Camerata Romeu dedicated to Havana, with a medley from colonial times to modernity, will be one of the most beautiful gifts to the capital.
• More than 2,000 construction works have been completed in the capital, of which 1,400 works, including operating and admission rooms in hospitals, laboratories and classrooms, while around 900 projects of commerce and gastronomy different magnitudes and with a high community impact.
• The Ministry of Tourism presents a large investment process that results in the opening of new hotels, with the expansion of capacities and the rehabilitation of more than a thousand closed rooms. In addition, as a novelty is the early culmination of the Marbella camping, the first tourist facility of its kind in Havana.
• Within the buildings or public spaces are: The Capitol (500th anniversary summit work), the Cuatro Caminos market, the Japanese Botanical Garden Garden, La Tropical Gardens, the Forest Park and Lenin Park, among others.