The Cuban architect Andrés Jesús "Cuco" Garrudo Marañón passed away last Thursday, the 16th, in Havana, at the age of 94, leaving behind one of the most prolific legacies in Cuban architecture in recent decades.
The news, made public through various outlets including an obituary posted on the Facebook profile of architect Universo García Lorenzo, was disseminated by several media. "An example of professional integrity and humility, always cheerful and straightforward, a role model for our industry," wrote García Lorenzo when announcing the passing.
Born on January 30, 1932 in La Esperanza, Las Villas, Garrudo graduated as an architect from the School of Architecture at the University of Havana in 1956 and developed a seven-decade career that spanned educational, health, sports, and hotel architecture across the Island.
His most emblematic work is the Vocational School "Vladimir Ilich Lenin" in Havana, a complex of 84,000 m² with a capacity for 4,500 students in basic secondary and pre-university education, designed between 1972 and 1974 as the lead architect of the National Group for School Constructions of the Ministry of Construction, the note details.
The project received the Award from the First Architecture Biennial of Cuba in the field of education and, in 1998, the XXX Years of Architecture Award. García Lorenzo's publication notes that generations of students from Lenin have immortalized the memory of its chief architect.
Garrudo was also the designer of the vocational schools "Ernesto Che Guevara" in Santa Clara (75,000 m², 1975) and "José Martí" in Holguín (75,000 m², 1975), as well as a consultant or advisor for those in Camagüey, Matanzas, Santiago de Cuba, and Pinar del Río. Before this stage, between 1969 and 1971, he was part of the project team for Parque Lenin in Havana under the direction of architect Antonio Quintana Simonetti, where he designed children's areas, a nursery, a puppet theatre, an agricultural farm, a recreational train, and the cafeteria "Los Jagüeyes," among other features.
As time has passed and the country has faced a multidimensional crisis, some of those works, once emblematic, have ended up in clear deterioration, as reported by those who studied or lived in them.
The work of the eminent professional was not limited to school architecture. In 1988, he designed the Immunoassay Center, a project that won the UNAICC Architecture Award and the XXX Years Architecture Biennial Award in the field of health and biotechnology. He also carried out the remodeling and expansion of the “Cira García” Central Clinic (1987-1988), which received a Special Mention from UNAICC, and the “Sierra Maestra” Building in Miramar, awarded the UNAICC Prize in 1998. Additionally, he developed the Technical Standards for school constructions in Cuba and taught at the School of Architecture of Havana between 1960 and 1961. He also supervised several theses in the specialty.
Member of the UNAICC and the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), Garrudo Marañón founded the Environmental Design Section in the latter, now known as the Architecture and Heritage Section. In 2020, the filmmaker Roberto Santana Duque Estrada and Raúl Ortega dedicated the 30-minute biographical documentary "The Architect and the School" to him. Significantly, both directors were graduates of the Lenin Vocational School, the institution that Garrudo designed and that profoundly impacted their lives.
"His recognized life and professional, human work has accompanied and inspired us, and it will continue to do so," wrote García Lorenzo in the note that sparked moving comments and hundreds of reactions online. Sincere condolences go out to his family, friends, colleagues, and students.
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