# Italian architect Vittorio Garatti, one of the creators of the National Art Schools buildings in Cubanacán, has passed away

**Date:** 01/13/2023

Italian architect Vittorio Garatti, the last surviving member of the formidable trio of creators of the magnificent National Art Schools buildings in Cubanacán, passed away this Thursday in Milan at the age of 96.

West of the Cuban capital, on the grounds of a golf club belonging to the Cuban upper bourgeoisie that was displaced from power by revolutionary forces, construction of the schools began in the early sixties, on the initiative of Fidel.

Cuban architect Ricardo Porro, upon his return to the island, called upon his Italian colleagues Roberto Gottardi and Vittorio Garatti to design the beautiful dream.

Garatti personally took charge of the Music and Ballet schools, the first conceived as a serpentine structure that integrated rooms for theoretical and practical instrumental classes, in addition to two concert halls; the other as a complex of vaulted pavilions covered in terracotta, with optimal facilities for dance training.

Although the construction complex remained unfinished, both the design and the buildings put into use marked a stellar moment in Cuban revolutionary architecture and set a milestone celebrated beyond our borders.

Porro, Gottardi, and Garatti deserved the Vittorio de Sica Prize for architecture in 2012 for the design of the Cuban schools, proclaimed a National Monument. In the context of one of Garatti's visits to the island, the University of the Arts in Havana distinguished the creator with an Honorary Doctorate.

Garatti also contributed to the development of the Institute of Physical Planning and the Master Plan of the capital.