Instituto Técnico Militar
The Instituto Técnico Militar (lit. Technical Military Institute), formerly the home of the Colegio de Belén, was designed by the Cuban architectural firm of Morales & Cia (Leonardo Morales y Pedroso) in 1925. It is located at 45th and 66th streets in Marianao, Havana, Cuba.
The building was constructed to be used as the main building of the Colegio de Belén, which had been open since 1854 within the premises of the convent of the same name in Old Havana, but the premises became unsuitable and badly located due to the change of atmosphere in the neighborhood and the growth of the city. This project offered Morales & Cia an unlimited budget for designing a religious school, the Jesuit Colegio de Belén.
The result is a monumental panoptical edifice with an extensive neoclassical facade perpendicular to the chapel and four great courtyards with porticoed galleries to link it with each of the nine radial pavilions. The appearance is of extreme monumentality which is supported both in the design resources and the unusual dimensions of the spaces. The structure is built from concrete-covered steel and the flooring and roof are monolithic reinforced concrete.
The chapel has three naves the central one being higher and wider, and it has a mural by Hipolito Hidalgo de Caviedes (1901–1994). It was known as "The Palace of Education." It is a Cuban National Monument.
In 1961 the Cuban government of Fidel Castro (a former graduate of Belen) confiscated all private and religious schools in Cuba, since then it has been known as the Insituto Tecnico Militar. Castro expelled the Jesuits and declared the government of Cuba an atheist government. The Jesuits left to Miami,Florida and opened up Belen Jesuit Preparatory School.
Images from the 1950s of the Colegio de Belen, which the 1961 school occupied:
Colegio de Belén (1854-1925)
Front entrance
Aerial view
Hallways
Auditorium
One of the lunch rooms
Chapel
Indoor swimming pool
Coordinates: 23°05′46″N 82°25′01″W / 23.096°N 82.417°W
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