CAMAGÜEY. - One of the most beautiful chronicles of Nicolás Guillén is entitled Camagüey. He had the eyes put in his memoirs of the city, and perhaps he was not suspecting that this affectionate space for him was part of a plan of historical false.

In December, 1941 he published in the magazine Ellas:

“I cannot go to Camagüey without revising it, as a remote lesson that I do not want to forget. The first thing: the Square of San Juan de Dios (St John of God), with its big godforsaken convent, where the inert Agramonte body was exhibited, burned later …”.

In this date, an architect was projecting the transformation of the building into hospital. He simulated a sprocketed eave towards the courtyard and also on the cistern a rim well, between other appendices. His "contribution" to show “more colonial” the building of 1728 is known as historical falsely.

Photo: file

With the above mentioned lies, and especially, by the force of its significances, this constructive milestone has marked generations of Cuban. In fact, the set of the square, the church and the hospital is a National Monument since 1978, and it is inside the segment proclaimed by the UNESCO Cultural Heritage of the Humanity. Nevertheless, it has remained closed too much time.

THE HEALING PROJECT

When Adelante indicated the gravity of the deterioration through the reportage The oversight has its National Monument, of October 17, 2015, it was without offering service to the public for more than one year, and two decades were estimated without effective renovation. An interviewee of then already offers good news.

“It is a rehabilitation with restoration. We hope to finish the civil work in July. He will devote himself to the medicine because here the first pediatric institution of Camagüey took root”, says Gineldo Falcón Fariñas, main specialist of the Office of Places and Historic Monuments of the Provincial Center of Cultural Heritage.

“To the beginning it was not a well-planned work. It could be consolidated in 2018 with the Project Company of Engineering and Architecture number 11. It has cost 1 million 200 000 pesos. The financing has not been easy but we advance for the concept of the land tax of 1 % that the companies do”, he adds.

The authenticity, something so relative, is assumed like respect to the heredity, according to Gineldo: "The modifications happened from the forties of last century. The floors are neither the originals of the 18th century nor the carpentry, but the structure of the building is intact. It keeps its value as heritage building”.

TO MAKE TO NOTICE THE VALUES

The carpentry was hired by the Cuban Fund of Cultural Assets and a private workpeople brigade works in covering, building and electrical and hydro-sanitary networks. They are not specialists in restoration; nevertheless, Dayán Rodríguez Rodríguez, conservative of the museum, considers the work to be proper, in spite of the problems with specific materials.

“The walls have a lot of moisture. To apply cement is like putting a nylon. The third used earlier allowed them to breathe. Now there is lime, but it does not give to dress the building. The maintenance management must be frequent, every two or three years”, explains the Master's degree in Conservation of Built-up Patrimony.

Orientation and receptivity appear as binomial in this determination for returning to the social life a museum that is as an honor question, and as vindication of symbols of the regional identity.

“Although the turned-wood balusters of galleries and of windows, and the third apartment they are another historical false, they suit it very much. In general, the values of the building are going to be evident”, insists Dayán.

LOOKING FOR THE WHITE IXORAS

In his postgraduate course The architectural patrimony as historical memory, Henry Mazorra Acosta has insisted: "To take control of the built patrimony is always a scientific exercise, never a levity act”. This maxim of the Camagüey´s young architect and teacher is also applied in the revival of the courtyard.

“We work with the plan of what existed. We have almost all the plants except for the white ixora. We will put the red one up to finding it in another province”, tells Andrés Martín Lugo, chief of brigade of gardening of the CCS September 21.

In his land the arecas are sure and he traces in the pastures the stated lawn. “We are trying to save the original idea”, says ardently this average peasant forgetful of the birds of the building and his sowing of “historical false” of natural origin. I imagine a museum and a square full of light that they could smell to white butterflies and to jasmines.

In the St John of God square Fidel was, on May 11, 1973, in the centenary of the fall of Ignacio Agramonte. Photo: File.

Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez