La conservación del patrimonio histórico construido: una visión compartida entre Italia y América Latina

Despite their current state of high degradation, the National Art Schools (Escuelas Nacionales de Arte) of Cuba are still the most emblematic example of the use of the bóvedas tabicadas within a Modernista architecture. A wonderful example of organic architecture, these schools were designed in the 1960s by the Italian architects Roberto Gottardi and Vittorio Garatti and the Cuban architect Ricardo Porro on behalf of the Cuban revolutionary government. They consist of five buildings with a total surface of 65,000 m2 set in a natural park of 600,000 m2, aimed at teaching dance, music, theatrical art, plastic arts and ballet. In the school of Ballet, the Catalan or Valencian technique has been widely used. According to the intention of the designer Vittorio Garatti, the low segmental vaults should have made it possible to be used even at the extrados. Currently, in the entrance area, the lack of the upper extrados layer of lengthwise bricks due to neglect and vandalism, suggested the need of verifying the safety level in this ruined state, performing a thrust line analysis analytically through a software developed by the authors. Exploiting the Heyman’s theory, the analysis has been framed in the context of limit analysis. Two load conditions have been considered: self-weight and the presence of users placed at the mid-span area of the vault on the extrados. We have estimated a lowering of the stability level of 30% and, as a consequence, a sudden intervention of safety measures is suggested.