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Cuba's National Art Schools (Escuelas Nacionales de Arte, now known as the Instituto Superior de Arte) are considered by historians to be one of the most outstanding architectural achievements of the Cuban Revolution.〔Loomis, John A., ''Revolution of Forms - Cuba's Forgotten Art Schools'', introduction p. xxiii〕 These innovative, organic Catalan-vaulted brick and terra-cotta structures were built on the site of a former country club in the far western Havana suburb of Cubanacán, which used to be Havana's "Beverly Hills" and was then mainly reserved for Communist Party officials.〔http://www.moon.com/destinations/cuba/havana/sights-playa/cubanacan〕 The schools were conceived and founded by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in 1961, and they reflect the utopian optimism and revolutionary exuberance of the early years of the Cuban Revolution.〔Rubin, D. (2000), ''World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: The Americas'', Taylor & Francis〕 Over their years of active use, the schools served as the primary incubator for Cuba’s artists, musicians, actors and dancers. By 1965, however, the art schools and their architects fell out of favor as Soviet-inspired functionalist forms became standard in Cuba. Additionally, the schools were subjected to accusations that their design was incompatible with the Cuban Revolution. These factors resulted in the schools’ near-complete decommissioning and the departure of two of their three architects. Never fully completed, the complex of buildings lay in various stages of use and abandonment, some parts literally overgrown by the jungle until preservation efforts began in the first decade of the 21st century. The schools’ legacy was eventually brought to light by regional and international architectural journals in the 1980s, piquing the curiosity of observers both internationally and within Cuba through the 1990s. This growing interest reached its apex in 1999 with the publication of the book ''Revolution of Forms - Cuba's Forgotten Art Schools'', by John Loomis, a California-based architect, professor, and author. Following the publication of ''Revolution of Forms'', the schools attracted even greater international attention and in 2000 they were nominated for the World Monuments Fund Watch List. In November 2010, the National Art Schools were officially recognized as national monuments by the Cuban Government,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=NATIONAL ART SCHOOLS - World Monuments Fund )〕 and they are currently being considered for inclusion on the World Heritage list of sites which have "outstanding universal value" to the world.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=National Schools of Art, Cubanacán )〕 Cuba’s National Art Schools have inspired a series of art installations under the name of ''Utopia Posible'' by the Cuban artist Felipe Dulzaides, the documentary film ''Unfinished Spaces'' by Alysa Nahmias and Ben Murray, and an opera directed by Robert Wilson entitled ''Revolution of Forms'' (named after John Loomis' book)〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Revolution of Forms: Cuba's Forgotten Art Schools )〕 written by Charles Koppleman. ==Conceptualization of Cuba's National Art Schools== In January 1961, the Cuban revolutionary leaders Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, enjoyed a drink after they finished a game of golf at Havana’s formerly exclusive Country Club Park, pondered the future of a country club whose members had all fled the country. The Cuban Literacy Campaign had just been launched, and with the inspiration of extending the program’s success into a wider cultural arena, Guevara proposed the creation of a complex of tuition-free art schools to serve talented young people from all over the Third World. He conceived of the schools as highly experimental and conceptually advanced to serve the creation of a “new culture” for the “new man”. An innovative program called for innovative architecture, and Castro saw the Cuban architect Ricardo Porro as being that architect who could deliver such architecture.〔Loomis, ''Revolution of Forms'', p.21〕 Cuba’s National Art Schools represented an attempt to reinvent architecture in the same manner that the Cuban Revolution aspired to reinvent society. Through their designs, the architects sought to integrate issues of culture, ethnicity, and place into a revolutionary formal composition hitherto unknown in architecture.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Castro's Dream - World Monuments Fund )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「National Art Schools (Cuba)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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