Cuba says goodbye to Eusebio Leal, architect of the restoration of colonial Havana

Children pay tribute to Eusebio Leal, the official historian of Havana, at the capitol of the Cuban capital, this Thursday.ALEXANDRE MENEGHINI / Reuters

The farewell to Eusebio Leal, architect of the restoration of Old Havana and a key piece in the salvation of the Historic Center of one of the most beautiful capitals in America, was as he would have liked.

His ashes were exposed on Thursday in the majestic Hall of the Lost Steps of the National Capitol, a jewel of Cuban neoclassical eclecticism, to whose rehabilitation he dedicated the last years of his life.

He died on July 31, at the age of 77, his funerals - postponed until now due to the Covid-19 pandemic - included the popular tribute in the Capitol, one of his great restorative works, where thousands of people paraded, people on foot, authorities, neighbors of Old Havana and also a large part of the team that worked side by side with him in the Office of the City Historian, architects, painters, designers, bricklayers, carpenters, editors, engineers, blacksmiths, teachers plaster and stained glass, among others, who came to say their last goodbye to their teacher and friend, to the person that everyone simply called Eusebio.

There were many tears in the Capitol because everyone loved Eusebio.

And the few who did not want him respected him for his work, which allowed the rescue and rehabilitation of hundreds of buildings, palaces, parks, squares, theaters and avenues in the colonial city, saving it from disaster.

The Historian of Havana was a man of religious convictions and he wanted his remains to rest next to those of his mother in a small garden at the back of the Minor Basilica of the old San Francisco de Asís Convent, another emblem of the Historic Center rescued by Leal with help from Spanish cooperation in the hard nineties, when the city was falling apart due to the crisis of the Special Period.

There, in a small tomb surrounded by flowers, in the heart of the colonial city, his ashes were deposited in a private family ceremony.

It is impossible to calculate how much Havana and Cuban culture owes Eusebio Leal.

Although his official position was simply that of Historian of the City, it was much more than that because since he arrived in Old Havana he dedicated himself to raising awareness.

Without their vehemence and intelligence to add and obtain resources, from the State and foreign institutions, a good part of the architectural heritage of the old colonial city would probably have disappeared, which since 1982 has been on the UNESCO world heritage list.

Eusebio spoke with contagious passion about his city, to which he dedicated his entire life.

Whoever listened to him, whether they were kings, presidents, ambassadors, artists, potentates, or the simplest people of the neighborhood, was committed to the cause of rescuing the city.

There were many who supported him with resources or in various ways in his rehabilitation effort, a work that he conceived to be inextricably linked to social development, not simply aimed at saving buildings or squares.

“Preserving the tangible and intangible heritage of the city is important, but not as a task of mummifying the past.

The Havana project and the mission we have is precisely to give it life, that the city be for those who live it, that is why the Office of the Historian has created schools, health centers and houses in the Historic Center, it is the only way to that it does not become an old town or a tourist center, ”Leal told EL PAIS in one of his last interviews, already ill but at the foot of the canyon in his office.

Born on September 11, 1942 in Havana, of very humble origin, his training was self-taught.

As a child, he dropped out of school to help his mother, and it was not until after the triumph of the revolution that he was able to finish high school and study History at the University of Havana.

A disciple of Emilio Roig de Leushenring, who he succeeded in the post of City Historian, he had a leading role in the restoration of the old Palace of the Captains General, the first major rehabilitation work undertaken in the city, completed in 1979.

From 1981 he began to direct the restoration works of the Historic Center of Havana.

Few funds were then dedicated to this endeavor, but Leal mitigated the imponderables with his will and enthusiasm, carrying out in the following years the rehabilitation of the fortress of San Carlos de La Cabaña and the Castillo de los Tres Reyes de El Morro.

Since then, he has dedicated himself to raising awareness in the heights of the importance of saving the patrimonial wealth of the Historic Center and the colonial city and fought to obtain the necessary resources to finance this gigantic work.

In 1993, when the collapse of the socialist camp left the country without resources, Leal convinced the then Cuban president, Fidel Castro, of the need to give Old Havana considerable margins of autonomy and create his own business system to self-finance the restoration.

The question was to save Havana at any cost, Leal defended.

During almost three decades the Office of the City Historian restored hundreds of buildings of great heritage value - such as the Palacio del Segundo Cabo, the Castillo de la Fuerza, the Centro Gallego or the Capitol -, and public spaces that today are the heart of the city, such as the Plaza de Armas, the Plaza de la Catedral, the Plaza de San Francisco or the Plaza Vieja, with the streets that link them, Mercaderes, Oficios, Obispo, today full of life and private businesses.

The restorative work of Old Havana has won many international awards and has been used as an example and model of a sustainable project with a high technical level.

This model was transformed over time, because if at the beginning the State carried the full burden of rehabilitation, Leal little by little granted greater margins to the private sector to finance the restoration of houses and buildings to start businesses, focusing the Office on rehabilitate public spaces and ensure that the standards were met so that everything was done in accordance with the safeguarding of heritage.

Old Havana with Eusebio was synonymous with dynamism and entrepreneurship.