By Dalia Acosta HAVANA
TIMES, March 1 (IPS) - architectural landmarks of the modern movement in Cuba and with a unique value in the historical memory of this nation seem destined to disappear before the great expansion of tourism complexes Hotel, threatening to impose in the resort of Varadero.
The alert exploded in 2010 with rumors about the demolition of the International Hotel and Club Hotel Cabanas del Sol, two of the 50 buildings found located in a privileged area of \u200b\u200bVaradero beach, located 140 kilometers east of Havana in the province of Matanzas.
Two declarations of the National Committee of ICOMOS, Cuba, the national chapter of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, one of May and November, have remained unanswered so far, confirmed the architect Jorge Fornes told IPS.
Fornés is chairman of the independent Cuban international council, known by ICOMOS, its acronym in English, which maintains close collaboration with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).
"Regardless of all decisions, as an architect I am convinced that it is not necessary when there is something valuable, delete it to make something new. If you want to keep something that has heritage value can be solved, "he said, recalling the conservation cases in Havana from the fortresses of the colonial period.
intellectual sector claims, mostly disseminated by email, they have not taken a public official response by representatives of the Ministry of Tourism or a reflection in the Cuban media. Hotel Workers International told IPS that "it was a decision already made."
"All (versions) are contradictory" concluded the poet Roberto Fernández García, who lives in Varadero, in a message distributed by e-mail that summarizes the results of investigations on yourself and others interested in the case, with the provincial authorities of the Ministry of Tourism.
that agency officials in Matanzas assured that "the International Hotel, which opened on December 24, 1950, was very old, outdated and small, with very few rooms, no longer met the demands of tourism in modern times" , according to Fernández message.
According to this version, the hotel's 161 rooms would be demolished to build in the same place, an installation 800 modern rooms. Similar fate would be at Cabanas del Sol, other tourist facilities in the first half of the twentieth century and known buildings of historical Varadero.
But Matanzas Historian's Office received another explanation. According to a message released by the Government not Brotherhood of Blackness, in this case the answer was that "the hydraulic system of the hotel had collapsed so it was cheaper to demolish it and build it again, to fix it."
However, the wrong version of the structural condition was not handled by the tourism authorities to the workers of the plant. "We were told that the demolition responds to environmental regulations and that it was useless to go to Eusebio Leal to save the hotel, "an employee told IPS.
Supposedly, Leal, Member of National Assembly (parliament) and head of the National Monuments Commission, could not do anything for a facility built on a dune, as more than a hundred buildings and thousands of feet of walls and fences to be demolished in Varadero as environmental studies.
Speaking to IPS in 2007, Alfredo Cabrera, director of the Office for Integrated Management of Varadero beach, said that before deciding on a demolition, that body took into account "the value or historical heritage the property "and whether it met" an important social function. "
As an employee of the ecological reserve Varahicacos, who lived a few years ago "degradation" of the category of protected area management for the construction of a hotel with hundreds of skills, told IPS that in the case of International Varadero should reconcile environmental and economic interests.
Sources close to the Ministry of Tourism confirmed that the institution has an agreement with another country for the construction of a modern hotel, similar to many others that have been built in recent years in the Cuban resort in the same area where now stands the International and Sol Cabañas del
With over 18,000 rooms and 49 hotels in 22 miles of beach, Varadero attracts half of the more than two million tourists visiting Cuba each year.
With a municipal population of 26,600 inhabitants, which integrates two neighboring communities, Varadero in February was a record of more than 31,000 visitors in one day, within an increasingly crowded and where supply increases the mode of all-inclusive.
"This is a preview of what may come to us up to a much larger scale because the country needed money urgently," he warned in remarks IPS Mario Coyula, National Architecture Award 2001, without directly mentioning the difficult economic situation in the island over the past decade. Beyond
architectural, architect and urban designer recalled that "for many people both facilities are benchmarks of a lifetime, something that is fast disappearing in Varadero, like living with a local population that increasingly is more cornered. "
Architects, artists, writers and journalists, who spoke to salvage what remains of the 50 Varadero, recalled their great potentials for tourism promotion cultural, with a separate bid to the "standardized option of sun and beach all inclusive can be found on any Caribbean island.
"To me this is a natural result of excessive centralization, can not deal with thousands of small and medium investors who could create a more stable and balanced richness. And most importantly, the children can not aspire to attach conditions, "said Coyula. Taken in Havana
Times: http://www.havanatimes.org/sp/?p=13643
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