The architect, civil and electrical engineer José Lecticio Salcines Morlote (1889-1974) owed his fame to an unrealized altruistic project and not to the sculpture of the same name that presides over the dome of his Palace erected at the end of the second decade of the last century. , and since April 12, 1993 elevated to Symbol of the City of Guantánamo by the Municipal Assembly of People's Power.
The stony figure represents in Greek mythology the messenger of Zeus, in charge of spreading great events throughout the world, owner of the omen of good and bad to come. Hopefully his most recent prediction is that Ad calendas graecas is not going to be delayed, as the Latin phrase says, the current rehabilitation of the property and that in a short time the most beautiful building in the city will once again host the staff of the Provincial Directorate of Heritage Cultural, the Museum of Decorative Arts and the Art Gallery.
Reaching that goal would be a plausible tribute to this illustrious man from Guantanamo who, in 1919, when life seemed to smile on him, erected the most relevant architectural works of the Upper East and designed and executed his lavish home, fully identified with the eclecticism or historicism that emerged in early Europe. 19th century, direct heir of neoclassicism.
Renowned specialists, including Gaspar Atares Faure, Provincial Prize for Architecture, agree that in La Villa del Guaso this trend broke with the paucity of constructions prior to the first third of the last century and provided decorative persistence to the facades and interiors of the houses. from this city.
The first level was projected from the beginning with the concept of open plan, since it would house the professional's office who, when he died, left valuable technical documentation, most of it scattered or lost.
Reinforced concrete predominated in the mansion, whose electrical and plumbing installations were embedded in copper pipes, and the stained glass windows mimic those of similar (but not so finished) palaces erected by the Havana bourgeoisie, in the first half of the previous century.
The statuette, with the classic Greek tunic and long and silent cornet commissioned by Salcines from the Italian sculptor Américo Chini, is conspired with capitals, cornices and sui generis columns to attract the visitor, Guantanamo or foreigner, and not a few admirers of the architect who (said that is, in parentheses) died in Cuba and at the service of the Revolution, in which he carried out, among other responsibilities, that of Advisor in the Ministry of Public Works.
A little-known aspect of his personality was his humanism, as he squandered the fortune provided by his status as the most sought-after architect among his contemporaries, in his unrealized effort to provide water to Santiago de Cuba, where the shortage of supply sources and the drought Reigning in the first four decades of the previous century, it forced the liquid to be sent in tanker ships from the illegitimate Yankee naval base, located on home soil since 1903.
His Multiple Use Project, conceived for that purpose (now taken over by the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources) was awarded at the I Pan-American Congress of Engineering (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1949) and proposed essence in 1913, with the titles of architect , civil and electrical engineer.
More than six decades after the forum, that proposal is considered the first scientifically based company to take advantage of part of the island's river flow, supply water to Santiago de Cuba, provide cheap energy to the old Oriente province and irrigate five thousand caballerias of the valley. from Guantanamo.
The aforementioned lauro then inspired the prestigious Bohemia magazine a series of articles full of praise and defenders of the need to apply the proposal of our fellow citizen, whose essence is the use of the hydrographic basins to the East of the Cradle of the Revolution (including the from the mighty Toa River and also those of the Guaso, Yateras and Jaibo) to create aqueducts, irrigate the salinized Guantánamo valley by gravity and generate cheap energy for several municipalities in the former Oriente province.
One of the criteria exposed by the most widely read magazine in Latin America, Salcines was classified as the Carlos J. Finlay of Cuban Engineering, an incorrect prediction, because unlike the Cuban doctor stripped by Walter Reed of the discovery of yellow fever, the most Important hydraulic works that benefit the native territory of the professional outlined in these lines were materialized thanks to the sketches and plans devised in the solitude of his family office by the Architect of the corners, as he is still known for the tendency to build in those intersections one of the most illustrious Guantanamo and less known than he should be.
By Pablo Soroa Fernández
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