Blanca Hernandez Gibernau

Architect

Name:

Blanca Hernandez Gibernau

Life Dates:

Born in Las Villas, Palmira

Country:

Cuba

Positions:

Since 1966 architect in Cuba

Field of expertise:

Landscape architecture

Education:

Polytechnic José Antonio Echavarría CUJAE, Havana

Short Biography

After finishing her degree, she went directly to work at the Vice-Ministry of Housing, which also organized the different localities of the country. There she worked for 13 years creating mainly new development zones in the city of Cienfuegos. After 1979, Hernandez worked as director of school design in the province of Las Villas. Since 1984, she has worked developing hospitals and tourism works as well as their restoration. Since 2000, she has been working on projects for the health area in Venezuela within the framework of collaboration between the two countries.

Work

Hernández was the architect appointed as the main designer of the Ernesto Guevara Memorial. The Memorial, which houses the remains of the guerrillas who fell with Che in Bolivia in October 1997, is a complementary work, well incorporated into the initial set of the Ernesto Guevara Monument in Las Villas, Santa Clara, 1988. Hernández is known for understanding buildings and their spaces as a complete functioning system. She has emphasized more than anything else for enriching cultural and artistic spaces, a task for which she was awarded with the Zarapico prize, the main distinction of art and extraordinary merits in Cuba, for those personalities who make socialism a system of thought where the most important task is to form thinking and sensitive men within the Cuban culture.

Figure 1: Mausoleo en la Plaza del Che, Santa Clara
Figure 3: Mausoleo en la Plaza del Che, Santa Clara
Figure 2: Mausoleo en la Plaza del Che, Santa Clara
Figure 4: Che Guevara Mausoleum

Bibliography

Interview with Blanca Hernández Gibernau

Cuadra, M. (2019). DE PRIMERA MANO: La Arquitectura de la Revolución Cubana 1959-2018 ENTREVISTAS CON SUS PROTAGONISTAS Y CRONISTAS. kassel university press GmbH

Illustration credits

Main image: http://www.vanguardia.cu/villa-clara/4355-remedios-distingue-la-virtud (last accessed on 08.02.2022)

Figure 1: https://cvilchesmonzon.wordpress.com/tag/blanca-hernandez-gibernau/ (last accessed on 08.02.2022)

Figure 2: https://cvilchesmonzon.wordpress.com/tag/blanca-hernandez-gibernau/ (last accessed on 08.02.2022)

Figure 3: https://cvilchesmonzon.wordpress.com/tag/blanca-hernandez-gibernau/ (last accessed on 08.02.2022)

Figure 4: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Che_Guevara_Mausoleum (last accessed on 04.10.2022)

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