Vittorio Garatti

• Name — Vittorio Garatti • Born — 6 April 1927 • Birthplace — Milan, Italy • Died — 12 January 2023 • Education — Polytechnic University of Milan • Occupation — Architect • Illustration — Vittorio Garatti, School of Ballet, Escuela Nacional de Arte, a Cuba (1961-1965)

• Illustration — School of Ballet: provisional covering of the domes • Illustration — Vittorio Garatti - School of Ballet, Escuela Nacional de Arte • Illustration — School of Ballet: example of the use of terracotta Catalan vault technique Garatti was born in Milan on 6 April 1927. He graduated in architecture in 1957 from the Politecnico di Milano, where Ernesto Nathan Rogers was a major influence. Guido Canella and Gae Aulenti were his classmates.

In that same year, Garatti departed for Venezuela, where he found employment in the Banco Obrero project led by architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva, and began teaching at the University in Caracas. Garatti, like fellow architect and Banco Obrero project mate Roberto Gottardi, had been a young participant in the post-war debate in Italy against Rationalism, a critique that was led by such figures as Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Carlo Scarpa, Mario Ridolfi, Giuseppe Samonà and Bruno Zevi.

Following the victory of the Cuban Revolution, Cuban-born architect (and Banco Obrero participant) Ricardo Porro invited Garatti and Roberto Gottardi to join him in Havana in early 1961. Garatti soon began work with Porro and Gottardi on the ambitious project of Havana's new National Art Schools, commissioned by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, in the context of the educational policy promoted immediately after the revolution. The architectural complex was to be built in the most exclusive upper-class Cuban district, the Country Club. The intention was to create a cultural center of extraordinary dimension, opened to the developing countries of three continents, just 90 miles from the symbol of American imperialism.

In 1962 he realized the Escuela Andre Voisin in Guines, while in 1966-67, with Sergio Baroni and Hugo d'Acosta, he designed the Cuban pavilion at the Expo 1967 in Montreal. Over the years 1968/70, with Max Vaquero, Eusebio Azcue, and urban planner Jean-Pierre Garnier, he supervised the development plan of the capital.

As a result of a changed cultural climate and ideological, Vittorio Garatti ended up being viewed with suspicion and went under arrest for twenty days, in June 1974 on charges of spying. In that same year he was forced to leave the country by force. Garatti moved in Italy, where he practised as an architect.

• Illustration — Gallery following the weaving layout of the School of Music The case of the unfinished project of the Escuelas began to emerge in 1999 with the publication, of the first edition of the book Revolution of Forms - Cuba's Forgotten Art Schools by John A. Loomis, architect and professor at the City College of New York. On 28 February 2003 the site was included on the Tentative List of World Heritage Sites by UNESCO, in the category of cultural heritage. These events gave to the abandoned architectural complex a renewed interest. In 2011, the documentary Unfinished Spaces, produced and directed by Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray, was released. Vittorio Garatti attended the film festival premieres in Los Angeles and Havana. The film won a Film Independent Spirit Award, the Society of Architectural Historians Film and Video Award, and was released on PBS, HBO Latin America, Al-Jazeera English, iTunes, and Netflix. Fundraising initiatives have since been proposed to help with the restoration and the preservation of the project. In November 2012 international press announced a project of restoration and re-use of the Havana Escuelas Nacional de Arte complex put forward by Cuban ballet superstar Carlos Acosta. According to the BBC, Acosta planned "to create a new model of [ballet] school... that would be financially self-sustaining, run as a non-profit-making charity". According to the article, however, the project was stalled because of the opposition of Vittorio Garatti, who "is protesting that he has been sidelined. He has written to Cuba's Communist leaders claiming that Acosta wants to 'appropriate' and 'privatase' his building" (S. Rainsford, "Carlos Acosta's Cuban ballet school dream", BBC News, 18 November 2012).

The Vittorio Garatti’s Committee is a non-profit organization that aims to raise the funds for the renovation, the preservation and the finalization of three of the five schools that constitute the NATIONAL SCHOOLS OF ARTS of Cubanacan, La Habana (Cuba) and in the detail they are: • The School of Ballet - designed by arch. Vittorio Garatti. • The School of Music - designed by arch. Vittorio Garatti. • The School of Dramatic Arts - designed by arch. Roberto Gottardi.