Journal articles on the topic 'Venezuelan Poets'

El artículo es un viaje en la memoria para exaltar el aporte de los poetas venezolanos fundacionales y contemporáneos para evitar el olvido y el desconocimiento de las raíces que explican a Venezuela como nación. Palabras claves: poesía; poetas venezolanos; literatura; Venezuela.

Leer literatura para vislumbrar la ciudad permite estudiar aspectos sobre la cultura (lengua y sociedad) y el territorio (estado fronterizo: San Antonio del Táchira – Venezuela) que conllevan a la unificación de saberes desde la mirada del poeta y del lector. Considerando aspectos literarios, geográficos e históricos que facilitan la interpretación de los datos a través de la investigación documental, en un nivel exploratorio, cualitativo. Además de anticipar desenlaces y relacionar hechos con el contexto social e histórico que envuelve al lector.

Neste artigo, apresentamos a tradução comentada de três poemas de Lydda Franco Farías, poeta venezuelana cuja voz lírica destaca pelo tom questionador, intimista, irónico e burlesco dos seus versos, desafiantes da sociedade patriarcal. Os três poemas foram publicados originalmente nos livros Poemas circunstanciales (1965) e Una (1985), bem como incluídos na Antologia poética (2005) posteriormente editada da sua obra. Respaldadas nas propostas de Haroldo de Campos sobre tradução, labor que demanda uma constante tensão, desconstrução, invenção, reinvenção e reposição de signos do texto original, nos propusemos preservar os recursos literários de cada poema, não deixando de adaptar alguns elementos para dar sentido em português ao eu lírico da poeta.

<p>Palabras de Betsimar Sepúlveda en conferencia en la Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá, 2012) sobre la imagen poética a partir de los textos de Anastasia Candre y sobre los escritores y escritoras indígenas que levantan su voz propia de la memoria y la tierra. Incluye un poema de Betsimar dedicado a Anastasia Candre y dos poemas de Juan Rivas y Vicente Arreaza, poetas pemones de Venezuela.</p>

Abstract Stratum, the de-facto mining communication protocol used by blockchain based cryptocurrency systems, enables miners to reliably and efficiently fetch jobs from mining pool servers. In this paper we exploit Stratum’s lack of encryption to develop passive and active attacks on Bitcoin’s mining protocol, with important implications on the privacy, security and even safety of mining equipment owners. We introduce StraTap and ISP Log attacks, that infer miner earnings if given access to miner communications, or even their logs. We develop BiteCoin, an active attack that hijacks shares submitted by miners, and their associated payouts. We build BiteCoin on WireGhost, a tool we developed to hijack and surreptitiously maintain Stratum connections. Our attacks reveal that securing Stratum through pervasive encryption is not only undesirable (due to large overheads), but also ineffective: an adversary can predict miner earnings even when given access to only packet timestamps. Instead, we devise Bedrock, a minimalistic Stratum extension that protects the privacy and security of mining participants. We introduce and leverage the mining cookie concept, a secret that each miner shares with the pool and includes in its puzzle computations, and that prevents attackers from reconstructing or hijacking the puzzles. We have implemented our attacks and collected 138MB of Stratum protocol traffic from mining equipment in the US and Venezuela. We show that Bedrock is resilient to active attacks even when an adversary breaks the crypto constructs it uses. Bedrock imposes a daily overhead of 12.03s on a single pool server that handles mining traffic from 16,000 miners.

Dionne Brand, poeta, novelista, documentarista e professora universitária, nasceu em Trinidad, uma ilha caribenha perto da Venezuela, e migrou para o Canadá na adolescência. Ganhadora de prêmios internacionais, como o “Governor General’s Award for Poetry” e o “Toronto Book Award”, é considerada ora caribenha ora canadense, apesar de reivindicar ser apátrida, e geralmente aborda temas como mulher, negritude, sexualidade, imigração, colonialismo, diáspora e justiça social. Alguns de seus trabalhos mais bem conhecidos e aclamados são o romance “What we all claim for”, o livro de poemas “thirsty”, o ensaio “Bread out of stone” e “A map to the door of no return”, uma meditação sobre negritude na diáspora.

La captura artesanal del pulpo (Octopus vulgaris) en el nororiente de Venezuela es importante desde el punto de vista socioeconómico en algunas comunidades pesqueras como El Tirano, isla de Margarita. La pesca del pulpo se realiza con línea de mano modificado llamado potera y últimamente con una línea de potes o tubos colocada en fondos de conchales, pero su uso no está permitido. En tal sentido, con el fin de proporcionar respuesta a los usuarios y a la administración pesquera sobre la práctica de este nuevo método de pesca, se planteó la necesidad de caracterizar el aparejo, y estimar el ingreso neto (πjt) como variable económica de desempeño, calculado en función de los ingresos totales por concepto del valor de las capturas (ITjt) menos el costo total (CTjt): πjt = ITjt– CTjt. Para alcanzar los objetivos, se realizaron entrevistas in situ y se tomó información de los desembarques en playas de El Tirano que faenan en el archipiélago Los Frailes, durante la temporada de pesca julio-diciembre de 2015. Los resultados obtenidos demostraron que este sistema de pesca es rentable y demanda poco esfuerzo, debido a su estructura y funcionabilidad. Se sugiere estudiar el impacto de la pesca con potes en el stock de pulpo. DOI: https://doi.org/10.54167/tch.v11i1.168

El artículo está dedicado a la descripción de los fenómenos gramaticales que se dan regularmente en la poesía latinoamericana contemporánea escrita en español. Los poemas de poetisas de diferentes generaciones de varios países (Venezuela, Cuba, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia) incluidas en la antología (español-ruso) “La Poesía latinoamericana hoy” sirve de base para esta investigación. La saturación de formas en primera persona da la impresión de una mayor importancia del yo-texto en la poesía femenina que en la masculina. Es necesario reconocer las dificultades objetivas para recrear la “gramática femenina” cuando se traduce a otro tipo de lengua. Lo más interesante en el tema de la gramática femenina son las declaraciones metalingüísticas de las poetas, que a menudo representan una declaración de un enfoque consciente de la elección de determinadas formas gramaticales y una demostración de la capacidad de las categorías gramaticales para expresar una posición feminista.

Abstract: Sung inside and beyond the confines of cathedrals during the principal religious celebrations, the musical-poetic genre of the villancico took on a special vibrancy in the viceregal city of Santafé (today, Bogotá, Colombia) from the later sixteenth century onward. The singers themselves not only played (sung) the roles of angels and shepherds, but also of others, often adapted from stock comic characters, such as the "Negro" or "Negra" (Black man or woman), found in the widely popular short comic dramas of the Spanish-speaking world. This article studies the manuscript evidence of how the villancicos composed, sung, and performed in the Bogotá Cathedral attest to the contribution of the "black voices" that were heard in this viceregal metropolis, to be embodied in these pieces. I provide transcriptions and analysis of the poems, and even theatrical scripts, found in the musical scores of a corpus of "villancicos de nacimiento" preserved in the Archive of Bogotá's Cathedral. In turn, these musical-poetic works open a window through which to better understand devotional and festive practices in a stratified colonial society and, in so doing, can give us also a picture of performance practices developed by largely unheralded and mostly anonymous Black performers of the territory of New Granada (which coincides with present-day Panamá, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador), which was administered through the Viceroyalty of Peru until 1717.

Uno de los argumentos para poder hablar de un contexto postsecular es el mantenimiento de la religiosidad profana en sus manifestaciones estéticas. Como otros fenómenos culturales, la espiritualidad occidental se ha transformado por la digitalización, el transhumanismo y la aceleración de los intercambios transnacionales. Si Néstor García Canclini habla de ‘culturas híbridas’, creo que se debe utilizar el término ‘espiritualidades híbridas’; dentro de estas, se pueden apreciar neomisticismos híbridos en la poesía contemporánea. De hecho, considero que el sincretismo de esta poesía es una prueba para su resignificación como nueva mística. Aunque existen diferentes tipos de hibridación, en este trabajo voy a tratar la hibridez transcultural. Para ello, he establecido una clasificación dividida en cuatro tipos: 1. hibridez transcultural por razones de migración y reminiscencias del origen religioso; 2. hibridez transcultural y transtemporal: el rescate de sistemas perdidos; 3. hibridez transcultural a partir de tradiciones no originarias; 4. hibridez multitranscultural. Cada una de estas se ha estudiado, respectivamente, en poetas de hasta seis países de lengua española: David Rosenmann-Taub (Chile); Jorge Eduardo Eielson (Perú) y Eduardo Scala (España); Elsa Cross (México) y Vicente Gerbasi (Venezuela); Gloria Gervitz (México) y Ernesto Cardenal (Nicaragua). Se espera así demostrar la hipótesis inicial y presentar un método para el análisis de los neomisticismos híbridos de tipo transcultural en la poesía hispánica de nuestro tiempo, método que pueda ser mejorado en siguientes trabajos, así como refutado o sofisticado por la comunidad académica.

Martín García Mérou (1862-1905) tuvo una destacada participación en la vida intelectual y diplomática de su época a escala transnacional. Se desempeñó en distintos cargos del servicio exterior argentino y fue poeta, periodista, crítico, ensayista, historiador, cronista, biógrafo y novelista. Nacido en Argentina, García Mérou estuvo la mayor parte de su vida instalado en otras geografías. Residió en naciones latinoamericanas, como Venezuela, Colombia, Perú, Paraguay y Brasil, en Estados Unidos, además de España y Alemania. Combinó esas residencias con sus labores intelectuales, y sus obras sobre la vida cultural y la historia de estos escenarios, lejos de ser los clásicos relatos de viaje o impresiones de la época, son estudios sólidamente informados sobre configuraciones sociales y dinámicas culturales que dan cuenta de los procesos modernizadores del cambio de siglo XIX al XX. Este ensayo centra la atención en una parte de la trayectoria cultural ydiplomática, la de sus estancias en Estados Unidos. Se presta atención a sus observaciones sobre la guerra de 1898, las Conferencias Panamericanas, el panamericanismo y el clima de ideas que suele caracterizarse como el del “primer antiimperialismo latinoamericano”. A su vez, se realiza un análisis crítico de sus escritos para conocer las representaciones sobre tópicos de su época, a saber: la consolidación de las estructuras estatales en América Latina, las visiones sobre los Estados Unidos y su proyección internacional, sus consideraciones sobre el servicio exterior argentino, entre otros aspectos. Para ello, se revisan fuentes provenientes del Archivo Histórico de Cancillería Argentina, del Fondo García Mérou del Instituto Bibliográfico Zinny, artículos de prensa y publicaciones periódicas y obras editadas.

Claudia Touris es la editora de este libro, que es el resultado de una serie de exposiciones de las II Jornadas de Religión y Sociedad en la Argentina contemporánea y países del Cono Sur (Religar-Sur), celebradas en la ciudad de Buenos Aires en el año 2011. Este evento reunió a destacados especialistas del catolicismo en América Latina y Europa. Dilemas del catolicismo contemporáneo en Europa y América Latina tiene como objetivo proporcionar diversos análisis acerca de los retos y dificultades del catolicismo como actor global en el mundo contemporáneo en diversos períodos históricos. A partir del estudio de casos, este libro, desde un punto de vista general, refleja el interés serio de hacer hincapié en la complejidad del catolicismo mundial, dando cuenta de los matices existentes. Es importante señalar que desde la Revolución Francesa (1789) hasta el Concilio Vaticano II, la posición de la Iglesia con la modernidad ha sido de ‘antítesis’,1 puesto que esta última representaba un ataque contra el monopolio de la interpretación católica del mundo y al mismo tiempo constituía la pérdida de su hegemonía como guía espiritual de la sociedad, limitando seriamente su poder temporal. Será a partir del señalado Concilio cuando la Iglesia se convierta en un intérprete de los ‘signos de los tiempos’ e inicie una transformación significativa de autobservación y organización, la cual generó en el mundo católico una oscilación entre cambio y preservación de la tradición. Ello, por cierto, en un marco de secularización que enfrentaría al catolicismo a una heterogeneidad interna que aún no se define. El libro consta de ocho artículos (aparte del prólogo escrito por Claudia Touris) agrupados en tres ejes temáticos: secularización y laicidad; la crisis católica posconciliar y los movimientos de renovación y retradicionalización. Los tres artículos del primer eje sitúan al lector en interesantes análisis junto a un recorrido histórico de las tensiones entre Estados laicos con una población local mayoritariamente religiosa (católica) en tres países: Colombia (Ana María Bidegain en “Secularización y laicidad en Colombia, 1820-1886)”, México (Reneé de la Torre en “Laicidad o derechos por la vida: arenas del conflicto entre la Iglesia católica, el Estado y la sociedad civil en México)” y Francia (Phillipe Portier con el trabajo titulado “La metamorfosis de la laicidad francesa, 1880-2012)”, cada una con excepcionales particularidades. En primer lugar, Ana María Bidegain nos muestra históricamente cómo llevaron adelante la secularización y laicidad los gobiernos liberales en Colombia (1849- 1885). Sobre este punto es interesante destacar que el liberalismo colombiano fue una de las experiencias más radicales de Latinoamérica durante el siglo XIX, período en que las nacientes repúblicas estaban inaugurando un ‘nuevo orden’ basado en los postulados de la Ilustración; este de alguna manera excluía todo lo relacionado con la religión católica, asociada a lo colonial, al atraso y, en definitiva, el ‘no progreso’. Fue así entonces que en Colombia hubo una separación de la Iglesia con respecto al Estado que provocó una serie de medidas como el desafuero eclesiástico y la expulsión de los jesuitas. Sin embargo, pese a ello, esta experiencia liberal en Colombia ‒según Bidegain‒, no logró imponer su proyecto debido a que lo religioso estaba muy arraigado dentro de la sociedad, además de faltar los recursos necesarios para llevarlo a cabo (p. 36). En segundo lugar, Reené de la Torre articula su artículo en torno a la particularidad de un Estado laico regido constitucionalmente y permeado por una religiosidad y cultura católicas. A pesar de ello, De la Torre sostiene que a nivel de Estado la separación rígida de lo religioso está puesta en peligro debido al ascenso de la derecha política conservadora (algunos de ellos católicos de extrema derecha) al gobierno, tomando decisiones que ponían en peligro la autonomía del Estado (p. 39). Ello tuvo como resultado, a juicio de la autora, que no se respetase el carácter laico del Estado (plasmado en la Revolución Mexicana que confinaban lo religioso al ámbito privado). En ese sentido, De la Torre nos recuerda, por ejemplo, un momento en que se transgrede la autonomía del Estado mexicano cuando el ex presidente Vicente Fox besó el anillo del Papa Juan Pablo II en su última visita a México. Por su parte, otro tema que aborda la autora es la pérdida de confianza en una de las instituciones de mayor confianza entre los mexicanos: la Iglesia católica, debido a los escándalos mediáticos por abuso sexual cometidos por sacerdotes; en particular el caso del padre Marcial Maciel, fundador de la orden religiosa Legionarios de Cristo. Lo cierto es que la disminución en la credibilidad de la iglesia no solo es exclusiva para México, sino que es una situación que está afectando a la Iglesia católica a nivel mundial.2 A nuestro modo de ver, el planteamiento de la autora deja entrever que la ortodoxia sexual y el clericalismo representan actualmente un obstáculo para la renovación de la Iglesia católica. Por último, Phillipe Portier examina cómo ha sido trabajada históricamente la atenuación de la singularidad laica francesa en tres fases sucesivas: separación, reconocimiento e integración. Cabe señalar que el autor destaca que la laicidad francesa ha sido hostil con la religión, al punto de que esta solo se expresa en el espacio privado, individual o social, careciendo del derecho a transitar por la vía pública. Olivier Compagnon, en su artículo “¿Una circularidad transatlántica? Las relaciones entre católicos europeos y latinoamericanos en los años del Concilio”, es quien da inicio al segundo eje. En su interesante artículo se propone analizar la circulación de ideas desde América Latina hacia Europa, enfatizando el impacto de las tres tendencias surgidas en el Concilio Vaticano II: cristianismo de liberación, democracia cristiana e integrismo. Para el primer caso, el autor sostiene que hubo un intento de crear comunidades eclesiales de base (CEBs) en Francia e Italia, a partir de las experiencias de sacerdotes de esas naciones en Brasil. A nuestro modo de ver, Compagnon esfuerza excesivamente el argumento de las transferencias de estas comunidades hacia Europa, sobre todo porque cuando menciona la existencia de CEBs en Italia no hay una prueba concreta de que efectivamente haya ocurrido así (ver pp. 84-85); me refiero a que no está lo suficientemente documentado y el autor se queda únicamente con lo que escuchó decir de un investigador italiano. Por otra parte, Compagnon indaga en la visión de los partidos democratacristianos francés e italiano sobre el gobierno de Eduardo Frei Montalva y su ‘revolución en libertad’ (1964-1970). Este punto reviste importancia puesto que se alude a visitas de militantes democratacristianos europeos a Chile para examinar el programa de gobierno de Frei Montalva. Por último, el autor examina la influencia de grupos integristas católicos brasileños, tales como el grupo Permanencia de Gustavo Corção y del argentino Julio Meinveille en reducidos círculos católicos antimodernistas franceses. “La Europa cristiana después de la caída del muro” es el último artículo que finaliza el segundo eje del libro. Escrito por Maurilio Guasco, investigador italiano, este analiza la situación de la Iglesia católica en Europa luego de la caída del Muro de Berlín y de los ‘socialismos reales’. A pesar de lo que se pueda creer, el autor sostiene en una de sus páginas que ante un evidente proceso de laicización en Europa, algunos países están volviendo a atribuir a la religión un papel rector en la identidad nacional; tal es el caso del partido político de extrema derecha Lega Nord en el norte de Italia (p. 98). El tercer eje temático se inaugura nuevamente con Oliver Compagnon con su trabajo titulado “Condiciones y paradojas de la recepción del pensamiento de Jacques Maritain en América Latina”. Esta es una perspectiva comparada que coloca énfasis en el influjo de uno de los principales intelectuales católicos a nivel mundial: Jacques Maritain, quien penetró con sus ideas en las elites católicas latinoamericanas. Según el autor, las ideas de Maritain ‒que conciliaron catolicismo y democracia‒ tuvieron impacto a inicios de la década de 1950 con el triunfo de las democracias europeas, una vez finalizada la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Estas habrían servido de plataforma para los programas de los nacientes partidos democratacristianos que por ejemplo llevarían a la victoria electoral a Eduardo Frei Montalva en Chile (1964) y a Rafael Caldera en Venezuela (1968), siendo estas las únicas experiencias democratacristianas en Latinoamérica en donde el pensamiento de Maritain se plasmó como proyecto político. El segundo artículo, titulado “Luces y sombras en la recepción del Concilio Vaticano II”, de Maurilio Guasco, nos invita a reflexionar en torno a la recepción del Concilio Vaticano II en el mundo católico, subrayando tres aspectos que todavía resultan controvertidos para el catolicismo: la reforma litúrgica, el ecumenismo y la relación entre Iglesia y mundo. Finalmente, el último artículo que cierra este libro es “Sublimes experiencias metahistóricas. Notas de viajes de Thomas Merton”, del historiador brasileño Marcelo Timotheo Da Costa. El autor realiza un interesante análisis del discurso teleológico de Thomas Merton, monje trapense, escritor, poeta y activista estadounidense, en sus relatos de viajes a Roma (1931 y 1933) y Cuba (1940), los cuales significan para Merton ‘la Jerusalén Celeste’ (p. 130). En resumen, el libro editado por Claudia Touris es muy alentador, con el encanto de las obras dedicadas a problematizar y complejizar el estudio sobre el catolicismo y a dar nada por sentado. Hay que dejar en claro, además, que la exposición de los temas tratados fluye de modo entretenido, a pesar de que los autores abordan los temas desde distintas premisas teóricas y metodológicas. De todas formas es un libro que merece constituirse en un recurso de referencia obligada para aquellos investigadores interesados en el catolicismo. 1 La orientación antimoderna del catolicismo se inició con el pontificado del Papa Pío VI cuando rechazó la Constitución Civil de la Asamblea Nacional de Francia y la Declaración de los Derechos Humanos por considerarlas incompatibles con la doctrina católica. 2 En estos días, en Chile se ha conocido el fallo al ex sacerdote de los Legionarios de Cristo, John O’Reilly, de origen irlandés, quien ha sido condenado –por abuso sexual a una ex alumna del colegio Cumbres (perteneciente a la misma congregación)– a cuatro años y un día de ‘libertad vigilada’.

El artículo propone una mirada transdisciplinaria del arte poético venezolano y sus vínculos político-ideológicos durante la Guerra Fría (1948-1991) con una metodología de análisis de grupos etarios para poder dar cuenta de las filiaciones ideológicas de los subconjuntos que se registran en un “Catálogo de muestra representativa de poetas y militancias” a partir de varias preguntas de investigación: ¿por qué son mayoría los poetas militantes o afines a una ideología de izquierdas? ¿por qué el “problema de Venezuela” es más representativo en un grupo ideológico de poetas que en otro? Al tiempo, aspiramos a explicar qué factores foráneos de la Guerra Fría cultural en Venezuela pudieron intervenir para dar forma a las adscripciones ideológicas de izquierdas y afines al Partido Comunista. En el “Catálogo” se identificaron 131 poetas aprovechando técnicas de investigación bibliohemerográfica, diferentes instrumentos de referencia y lo más original de la pesquisa, el aporte de uno de los coautores, experto crítico de la poesía venezolana y contemporáneo de buena parte de los sujetos de estudio.

La primera obra en prosa de Antonia Palacios (Venezuela, 1904-2001) se publicó en Buenos Aires en 1949. En 1950 la novela llegó a Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina y otros países de América Latina. En 1952 llegó a Europa: España, Portugal, Holanda y Francia. Palacios, una reconocida poeta y activista social, vivió durante la dictadura represiva de Juan Vicente Gómez (1908-1935). La novela expone hábilmente las contradicciones y complejidades del legado colonial y patriarcal de Venezuela durante su transición en una economía petrolera. La joven narradora cuestiona los estrictos roles de género y del legado dictatorial, especialmente las consecuencias para las mujeres. Palacios combina su habilidad como poeta con la capacidad de narrar las experiencias de una joven que vive en una sociedad rígidamente estructurada. Las mujeres forman parte de una economía doméstica creando dulces, cosiendo, vendiendo leche, lavando ropa, o, como en el caso de la madre de Ana Isabel, haciendo cajas de cigarrillos y cosiendo uniformes para los soldados. Las madres de la novela deben valerse por sí mismas, mientras que los padres están ausentes o son ineficaces. El padre de Ana Isabel está enfermo y es desempleado. El padre ausente de Pepe, aparece un día y espera que su hijo sea "macho" como él. El padre de su amiga Otilia simplemente desaparece. Los padres se van y las madres y los hijos deben cuidarse de sí mismos. Mientras el nuevo orden político en Venezuela está siendo redefinido por la dictadura y el nuevo orden económico se está redefiniendo por el descubrimiento del petróleo, el viejo orden patriarcal con sus convenciones rígidas y a veces opacas que Ana Isabel cuestiona, perdura. La novel muestra la diversidad de voces femeninas y examina los roles de género.

Abstract Background POEMS (polyneuropathy, organomegaly, endocrinopathy, monoclonal gammopathy, skin changes) is a rare, disabling, auto-inflammatory condition that may present to multiple specialties including rheumatology. We describe a case fulfilling all diagnostic criteria. Methods Please refer to the results section. Results A 52 year old lady of Venezuelan origin was referred to the rheumatology clinic with myalgia and arthralgia. She had a recent diagnosis of hypothyroidism. Her main concern was of skin hyperpigmentation, hypertrichosis and a reticular rash. She had been diagnosed with undifferentiated connective tissue disease (CTD) in Panama and had received a good symptomatic response to IM depomedrone. Initial examination findings revealed generalised skin pigmentation, hyperaemia and limited weakness of both shoulders. There were no other features of CTD. Initial bloods revealed normal FBC, UE, LFTS, CRP 18mg/l and ESR 37mm/hr. Serum electrophoresis, immunoglobulins, CK, cortisol, calcium, TSH, ANCA and urinalysis were normal. ANA was normal but had previously been positive in Panama. MRI of spine showed multiple abnormalities consistent with bony metastases. CT of chest, abdomen and pelvis (CAP) confirmed changes consistent with widespread sclerotic bony metastases with bilateral axillary lymphadenopathy, splenomegaly and diffuse bladder wall thickening. Lymph node biopsy confirmed Castleman-like changes, but this was not pathognomonic. Thyroid biopsy showed reactive changes. A bone biopsy of a sacral lesion revealed haemangioma. A PET scan highlighted sclerotic lesions and splenomegaly only. Mammogram and cystoscopy were normal. She then presented via ophthalmology to the acute medical unit at a different hospital with visual disturbance and confirmed papilloedema. CT head was normal. Lumbar puncture confirmed high CSF pressure and high protein levels of 1.75g/l. MRI of brain with enhancement showed leptomeningeal enhancement felt to be post-lumbar puncture change. Repeat CT CAP showed mild ascites and splenomegaly. Extensive infectious disease tests were all negative including HIV and TB Quantiferon. A review of medical literature and input from radiologists raised the diagnosis of POEMS. Immunofixation was requested and this confirmed a low level IGA lamba monoclonal band. Vascular endothelial growth factor was significantly elevated at 4800. Bone marrow biopsy confirmed low level lambda restricted plasma cell infiltration consistent with POEMS. She is now being treated with Lenalidomide and dexamethasone under the care of haematology and is likely to require an autologous stem cell transplant in the future. Conclusion The challenge of diagnosing POEMS is well recognised. Few patients meet the full criteria for diagnosis. The heterogeneity of its clinical presentation means that patients may present to several specialities with multiple complaints. The combination of musculoskeletal symptoms, skin changes and inflammatory neuropathy may give rise to a rheumatology opinion and therefore it is important rheumatologists have awareness of the condition. We recommend that POEMS should be considered in patients presenting with an inflammatory neuropathy. Disclosures L. Waters None. R. Benson None. M. Mahindrakar None. R. Moots None. R. Abernethy None.

Este artículo, escrito por Daniel O’Leary, fue elegido por Alfredo Iriarte antes de morir para su publicación por el Politécnico Grancolombiano. Después de una amena y completa introducción del poeta y ensayista Juan Gustavo Cobo Borda, nos adentramos en la vida del joven Bolívar, el Libertador, que aún hoy genera fascinaciones y conflictos. El texto, nos revela a un Bolívar vulnerable que a través de sus cartas nos transporta a algunas de las dramáticas situaciones y los protagonistas que rodearon los procesos de emancipación de la corona española. Los conflictivos eventos que produjeron la caída de Francisco Miranda, con la firma del convenio de San Mateo —al cual el mismo Bolívar se opuso— y el destino final de este general olvidado y maltratado en la Carraca. El escrito revela apartes de la historia, a veces olvidada, de Venezuela y Colombia, que lejos de los fríos datos históricos de los libros, muestran a un Bolívar humano y sus duras batallas, además dentro de sí, por lograr la Independencia.

Resumen A finales de agosto de 1941, fue designado Li Dijun (李迪俊) como el primer Enviado Extraordinario y Ministro Plenipotenciario de China en Venezuela. Li, arribó a Caracas a inicios de 1943 y presentó formalmente sus Cartas Credenciales al presidente Isaías Medina Angarita (1941–1945) el 13 de abril. Asimismo, instaló la Legación de China en la capital del país caribeño, quedando formalizadas de esta manera las relaciones binacionales. Ahora bien, previo a este importante hecho histórico, existe un antecedente no menos trascendente que obedece a la creación de una efímera sede consular venezolana en la ciudad de Shanghai en 1936, para la cual fue designado como Cónsul General, el 22 de julio, el poeta y escritor José Miguel Ferrer. En tal sentido, nuestro objetivo es, a través del método histórico-documental, analizar los orígenes de la presencia diplomática venezolana en China, a través de lo que fue la referida sede consular entre 1936 y 1938.

Introduction «I have never worked in the technocratic exaltation, solving a constructive problem and that’s it. I’ve always tried to interpret the space of human life» (Vittorio Garatti). Vittorio Garatti (Milan, April 6, 1927) is certainly one of the last witnesses of one “heroic” season of Italian architecture. In 1957 he graduated in architecture from the Polytechnic of Milan with a thesis proposing the redesign of a portion of the historic centre of Milan: the area between “piazza della Scala”, “via Broletto”, “via Filodrammatici” and the gardens of the former Olivetti building in via Clerici. These are the years in which Ernesto Nathan Rogers established himself as one of the main personalities of Milanese culture. Garatti endorses the criticism expressed by Rogers to the approval of the Rationalist “language” in favour of an architecture that recovers the implications of the place and of material culture. The social responsibility of architecture and connections between architecture and other forms of artistic expression are the invariants of all the activity of the architect, artist and graphic designer of Garatti. It will be Ernesto Nathan Rogers who will offer him the possibility of experiencing these “contaminations” early: in 1954, together with Giuliano Cesari, Raffaella Crespi, Giampiero Pallavicini and Ferruccio Rezzonico, he designs the preparation of the exhibition on musical instruments at the 10th Milan Triennale. The temporary installations will be a privileged area in which Garatti will continue to experiment and integrate the qualities of artist, graphic designer and architect with each other. Significant examples of this approach are the Art Schools in Cuba 1961-63, the residential complex of Cusano Milanino in 1973, the Attico Cosimo del Fante in 1980, the fittings for the Bubasty shops in 1984, the Camogli residence in 1986, his house atelier in Brera in 1988 and the interiors of the Hotel Gallia in 1989. True architecture generates itself1: an approach that was consolidated over the years of collaboration with Raúl Villanueva in Venezuela and is fulfilled in Cuba in the project of the Art Schools, where Garatti makes use of a plurality of tools that cannot be rigidly confined to the world of architecture. In 1957, in Caracas, he came into contact with Ricardo Porro and Roberto Gottardi. Ricardo Porro, who returned to Cuba in 1960, will be the one to involve Vittorio Garatti and Roberto Gottardi in the Escuelas Nacional de Arte project. The three young architects will be the protagonists of a happy season of the architecture of the Revolution, they will be crossed by that “revolutionary” energy that Ricardo Porro has defined as “magical realism”. As Garatti recalls: it was a special moment. We designed the Schools using a method developed in Venezuela. We started from an analysis of the context, understood not only as physical reality. We studied Cuban poets and painters. Wifredo Lam was a great reference. For example, Lezama Lima’s work is clearly recalled in the plan of the School of Ballet. We were pervaded by the spirit of the revolution. The contamination between knowledge and disciplines, the belief that architecture is a “parasitic” discipline are some of the themes at the centre of the conversation that follows, from which a working method that recognizes architecture as a “social transformation” task emerges, more precisely an art with a social purpose. Garatti often cites Porro’s definition of architecture: architecture is the poetic frame within which human life takes place. To Garatti architecture is a self-generating process, and as such it cannot find fulfilment within its disciplinary specificity: the disciplinary autonomy is a contradiction in terms. Architecture cannot be self-referencing, it generates itself precisely because it finds the sense of its social responsibility outside of itself. No concession to trends, to self-referencing, to the “objectification of architecture”, to its spectacularization. Garatti as Eupalino Valery shuns “mute architectures” and instead prefers singing architectures. A Dialogue of Luigi Alini with Vittorio Garatti Luigi Alini. Let’s start with some personal data. Vittorio Garatti. I was born in Milan on April 6, 1927. My friend Emilio Vedova told me that life could be considered as a sequence of encounters with people, places and facts. My sculptor grandfather played an important role in my life. I inherited the ability to perceive the dimensional quality of space, its plasticity, spatial vision from him. L.A. Your youth training took place in a dramatic phase of history of our country. Living in Milan during the war years must not have been easy. V.G. In October 1942 in Milan there was one of the most tragic bombings that the city has suffered. A bomb exploded in front of the Brera Academy, where the Dalmine offices were located. With a group of boys we went to the rooftops. We saw the city from above, with the roofs partially destroyed. I still carry this image inside me, it is part of that museum of memory that Luciano Semerani often talks about. This image probably resurfaced when I designed the ballet school. The idea of a promenade on the roofs to observe the landscape came from this. L.A. You joined the Faculty of Architecture at the Milan Polytechnic in May 1946-47. V.G. Milan and Italy were like in those years. The impact with the University was not positive, I was disappointed with the quality of the studies. L.A. You have had an intense relationship with the artists who gravitate around Brera, which you have always considered very important for your training. V.G. In 1948 I met Ilio Negri, a graphic designer. Also at Brera there was a group of artists (Morlotti, Chighine, Dova, Crippa) who frequented the Caffè Brera, known as “Bar della Titta”. Thanks to these visits I had the opportunity to broaden my knowledge. As you know, I maintain that there are life’s appointments and lightning strikes. The release of Dada magazine provided real enlightenment for me: I discovered the work of Kurt Schwitters, Theo Van Doesburg, the value of the image and three-dimensionality. L.A. You collaborated on several projects with Ilio Negri. V.G. In 1955 we created the graphics of the Lagostina brand, which was then also used for the preparation of the exhibition at the “Fiera Campionaria” in Milan. We also worked together for the Lerici steel industry. There was an extraordinary interaction with Ilio. L.A. The cultural influence of Ernesto Nathan Rogers was strong in the years you studied at the Milan Polytechnic. He influenced the cultural debate by establishing himself as one of the main personalities of the Milanese architectural scene through the activity of the BBPR studio but even more so through the direction of Domus (from ‘46 to ‘47) and Casabella Continuità (from ‘53 to ‘65). V.G. When I enrolled at the university he was not yet a full professor and he was very opposed. As you know, he coined the phrase: God created the architect, the devil created the colleague. In some ways it is a phrase that makes me rethink the words of Ernesto Che Guevara: beware of bureaucrats, because they can delay a revolution for 50 years. Rogers was the man of culture and the old “bureaucratic” apparatus feared that his entry into the University would sanction the end of their “domain”. L.A. In 1954, together with Giuliano Cesari, Raffella Crespi, Giampiero Pallavicini and Ferruccio Rezzonico, all graduating students of the Milan Polytechnic, you designed the staging of the exhibition on musical instruments at the 10th Milan Triennale. V.G. The project for the Exhibition of Musical Instruments at the Milan Triennale was commissioned by Rogers, with whom I subsequently collaborated for the preparation of the graphic part of the Castello Sforzesco Museum, together with Ilio Negri. We were given a very small budget for this project. We decided to prepare a sequence of horizontal planes hanging in a void. These tops also acted as spacers, preventing people from touching the tools. Among those exhibited there were some very valuable ones. We designed slender structures to be covered with rice paper. The solution pleased Rogers very much, who underlined the dialogue that was generated between the exhibited object and the display system. L.A. You graduated on March 14, 1957. V.G. The project theme that I developed for the thesis was the reconstruction of Piazza della Scala. While all the other classmates were doing “lecorbusierani” projects without paying much attention to the context, for my part I worked trying to have a vision of the city. I tried to bring out the specificities of that place with a vision that Ernesto Nathan Rogers had brought me to. I then found this vision of the city in the work of Giuseppe De Finetti. I tried to re-propose a vision of space and its “atmospheres”, a theme that Alberto Savinio also refers to in Listen to your heart city, from 1944. L.A. How was your work received by the thesis commission? V.G. It was judged too “formal” by Emiliano Gandolfi, but Piero Portaluppi did not express himself positively either. The project did not please. Also consider the cultural climate of the University of those years, everyone followed the international style of the CIAM. I was not very satisfied with the evaluation expressed by the commissioners, they said that the project was “Piranesian”, too baroque. The critique of culture rationalist was not appreciated. Only at IUAV was there any great cultural ferment thanks to Bruno Zevi. L.A. After graduation, you left for Venezuela. V.G. With my wife Wanda, in 1957 I joined my parents in Caracas. In Venezuela I got in touch with Paolo Gasparini, an extraordinary Italian photographer, Ricardo Porro and Roberto Gottardi, who came from Venice and had worked in Ernesto Nathan Rogers’ studio in Milan. Ricardo Porro worked in the office of Carlos Raúl Villanueva. The Cuban writer and literary critic Alejo Carpentier also lived in Caracas at that time. L.A. Carlos Raul Villanueva was one of the protagonists of Venezuelan architecture. His critical position in relation to the Modern Movement and the belief that it was necessary to find an “adaptation” to the specificities of local traditions, the characteristics of the places and the Venezuelan environment, I believe, marked your subsequent Cuban experience with the creative recovery of some elements of traditional architecture such as the portico, the patio, but also the use of traditional materials and technologies that you have masterfully reinterpreted. I think we can also add to these “themes” the connections between architecture and plastic arts. You also become a professor of Architectural Design at the Escuela de Arquitectura of the Central University of Caracas. V.G. On this academic experience I will tell you a statement by Porro that struck me very much: The important thing was not what I knew, I did not have sufficient knowledge and experience. What I could pass on to the students was above all a passion. In two years of teaching I was able to deepen, understand things better and understand how to pass them on to students. The Faculty of Architecture had recently been established and this I believe contributed to fuel the great enthusiasm that emerges from the words by Porro. Porro favoured mine and Gottardi’s entry as teachers. Keep in mind that in those years Villanueva was one of the most influential Venezuelan intellectuals and had played a leading role in the transformation of the University. Villanueva was very attentive to the involvement of art in architecture, just think of the magnificent project for the Universidad Central in Caracas, where he worked together with artists such as the sculptor Calder. I had recently graduated and found myself catapulted into academic activity. It was a strange feeling for a young architect who graduated with a minimum grade. At the University I was entrusted with the Architectural Design course. The relationships with the context, the recovery of some elements of tradition were at the centre of the interests developed with the students. Among these students I got to know the one who in the future became my chosen “brother”: Sergio Baroni. Together we designed all the services for the 23rd district that Carlos Raúl Villanueva had planned to solve the favelas problem. In these years of Venezuelan frequentation, Porro also opened the doors of Cuba to me. Through Porro I got to know the work of Josè Martì, who claimed: cult para eser libre. I also approached the work of Josè Lezama Lima, in my opinion one of the most interesting Cuban intellectuals, and the painting of Wilfredo Lam. L.A. In December 1959 the Revolution triumphed in Cuba. Ricardo Porro returned to Cuba in August 1960. You and Gottardi would join him in December and begin teaching at the Facultad de Arcuitectura. Your contribution to the training of young students took place in a moment of radical cultural change within which the task of designing the Schools was also inserted: the “new” architecture had to give concrete answers but also give “shape” to a new model of society. V.G. After the triumph of the Revolution, acts of terrorism began. At that time in the morning, I checked that they hadn’t placed a bomb under my car. Eisenhower was preparing the invasion. Life published an article on preparing for the invasion of the counterrevolutionary brigades. With Eisenhower dead, Kennedy activated the programme by imposing one condition: in conjunction with the invasion, the Cuban people would have to rise up. Shortly before the attempted invasion, the emigration, deemed temporary, of doctors, architects, university teachers etc. began. They were all convinced they would return to “liberated Cuba” a few weeks later. Their motto was: it is impossible for Americans to accept the triumph of the rebel army. As is well known, the Cuban people did not rise up. The revolutionary process continued and had no more obstacles. The fact that the bourgeois class and almost all the professionals had left Cuba put the country in a state of extreme weakness. The sensation was of great transformation taking place, it was evident. In that “revolutionary” push there was nothing celebratory. All available energies were invested in the culture. There were extraordinary initiatives, from the literacy campaign to the founding of international schools of medicine and of cinema. In Cuba it was decided to close schools for a year and to entrust elementary school children with the task of travelling around the country and teaching illiterate adults. In the morning they worked in the fields and in the evening they taught the peasants to read and write. In order to try to block this project, the counter-revolutionaries killed two children in an attempt to scare the population and the families of the literate children. There was a wave of popular indignation and the programme continued. L.A. Ricardo Porro was commissioned to design the Art Schools. Roberto Gottardi recalls that: «the wife of the Minister of Public Works, Selma Diaz, asked Porro to build the national art schools. The architecture had to be completely new and the schools, in Fidel’s words, the most beautiful in the world. All accomplished in six months. Take it or leave it! [...] it was days of rage and enthusiasm in which all areas of public life was run by an agile and imaginative spirit of warfare»2. You too remembered several times that: that architecture was born from a life experience, it incorporated enthusiasm for life and optimism for the future. V.G. The idea that generated them was to foster the cultural encounter between Africa, Asia and Latin America. A “place” for meeting and exchanging. A place where artists from all over the third world could interact freely. The realisation of the Schools was like receiving a “war assignment”. Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara selected the Country Club as the place to build a large training centre for all of Latin America. They understood that it was important to foster the Latin American union, a theme that Simón Bolivar had previously wanted to pursue. Il Ché and Fidel, returning from the Country Club, along the road leading to the centre of Havana, met Selma Diaz, architect and wife of Osmany Cienfuegos, the Cuban Construction Minister. Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara entrusted Selma Diaz with the task of designing this centre. She replied: I had just graduated, how could I deal with it? Then she adds: Riccardo Porro returned to Cuba with two Italian architects. Just think, three young architects without much experience catapulted into an assignment of this size. The choice of the place where to build the schools was a happy intuition of Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara. L.A. How did the confrontation develop? V.G. We had total freedom, but we had to respond to a functional programme defined with the heads of the schools. Five directors were appointed, one for each school. We initially thought of a citadel. A proposal that did not find acceptance among the Directors, who suggest thinking of five autonomous schools. We therefore decide to place the schools on the edge of the large park and to reuse all the pre-existing buildings. We imagined schools as “stations” to cross. The aim was to promote integration with the environment in which they were “immersed”. Schools are not closed spaces. We established, for example, that there would be no doors: when “everything was ours” there could not be a public and a private space, only the living space existed. L.A. Ricardo Porro recalled: I organised our study in the chapel of the former residence of the Serrà family in Vadado. It was a wonderful place [...]. A series of young people from the school of architecture came to help us […]. Working in that atmosphere, all night and all day was a poetic experience (Loomis , 1999). V.G. We felt like Renaissance architects. We walked around the park and discussed where to locate the schools. Imagine three young people discussing with total, unthinkable freedom. We decided that each of us would deal with one or more schools, within a global vision that was born from the comparison. I chose the Ballet School. Ivan Espin had to design the music school but in the end I did it because Ivan had health problems. Porro decided to take care of the School of Plastic Arts to support his nature as a sculptor. Gottardi had problems with the actors and directors, who could not produce a shared functional programme, which with the dancers was quite simple to produce. The reasons that led us to choose the different project themes were very simple and uncomplicated, as were those for identifying the areas. I liked hidden lands, I was interested in developing a building “embedded” in the ground. Ricardo, on the other hand, chose a hill on which arrange the school of Modern Art. Each of us chose the site almost instinctively. For the Classical Dance School, the functional programme that was provided to me was very meagre: a library, a deanery, an infirmary, three ballet classrooms, theoretical classrooms and one of choreography. We went to see the dancers while they were training and dancing with Porro. The perception was immediate that we had to think of concave and convex spaces that would welcome their movements in space. For a more organic integration with the landscape and to accommodate the orography of the area, we also decided to place the buildings in a “peripheral” position with respect to the park, a choice that allowed us not to alter the nature of the park too much but also to limit the distances to be covered from schools to homes. Selma Diaz added others to the first indications: remember that we have no iron, we have little of everything, but we have many bricks. These were the indications that came to us from the Ministry of Construction. We were also asked to design some large spaces, such as gyms. Consequently, we found ourselves faced with the need to cover large spans without being able to resort to an extensive use of reinforced concrete or wood. L.A. How was the comparison between you designers? V.G. The exchange of ideas was constant, the experiences flowed naturally from one work group to another, but each operated in total autonomy. Each design group had 5-6 students in it. In my case I was lucky enough to have Josè Mosquera among my collaborators, a brilliant modest student, a true revolutionary. The offices where we worked on the project were organised in the Club, which became our “headquarters”. We worked all night and in the morning we went to the construction site. For the solution of logistical problems and the management of the building site of the Ballet School, I was entrusted with an extraordinary bricklayer, a Maestro de Obra named Bacallao. During one of the meetings that took place daily at the construction site, Bacallao told me that in Batista’s time the architects arrived in the morning at the workplace all dressed in white and, keeping away from the construction site to avoid getting dusty, they transferred orders on what to do. In this description by we marvelled at the fact that we were in the construction site together with him to face and discuss how to solve the different problems. In this construction site the carpenters did an extraordinary job, they had considerable experience. Bacallao was fantastic, he could read the drawings and he managed the construction site in an impeccable way. We faced and solved problems and needs that the yard inevitably posed on a daily basis. One morning, for example, arriving at the construction site, I realised the impact that the building would have as a result of its total mono-materiality. I was “scared” by this effect. My eye fell on an old bathtub, inside which there were pieces of 10x10 tiles, then I said to Bacallao: we will cover the wedges between the ribs of the bovedas covering the Ballet and Choreography Theatre classrooms with the tiles. The yard also lived on decisions made directly on site. Also keep in mind that the mason teams assigned to each construction site were independent. However the experience between the groups of masons engaged in the different activities circulated, flowed. There was a constant confrontation. For the workers the involvement was total, they were building for their children. A worker who told me: I’m building the school where my son will come to study. Ricardo Porro was responsible for the whole project, he was a very cultured man. In the start-up phase of the project he took us to Trinidad, the old Spanish capital. He wanted to show us the roots of Cuban architectural culture. On this journey I was struck by the solution of fan windows, by the use of verandas, all passive devices which were entrusted with the control and optimisation of the comfort of the rooms. Porro accompanied us to those places precisely because he wanted to put the value of tradition at the centre of the discussion, he immersed us in colonial culture. L.A. It is to that “mechanism” of self-generation of the project that you have referred to on several occasions? V.G. Yes, just that. When I design, I certainly draw from that stratified “grammar of memory”, to quote Luciano Semerani, which lives within me. The project generates itself, is born and then begins to live a life of its own. A writer traces the profile and character of his characters, who gradually come to life with a life of their own. In the same way the creative process in architecture is self-generated. L.A. Some problems were solved directly on site, dialoguing with the workers. V.G. He went just like that. Many decisions were made on site as construction progressed. Design and construction proceeded contextually. The dialogue with the workers was fundamental. The creative act was self-generated and lived a life of its own, we did nothing but “accompany” a process. The construction site had a speed of execution that required the same planning speed. In the evening we worked to solve problems that the construction site posed. The drawings “aged” rapidly with respect to the speed of decisions and the progress of the work. The incredible thing about this experience is that three architects with different backgrounds come to a “unitary” project. All this was possible because we used the same materials, the same construction technique, but even more so because there was a similar interpretation of the place and its possibilities. L.A. The project of the Music School also included the construction of 96 cubicles, individual study rooms, a theatre for symphonic music and one for chamber music and Italian opera. You “articulated” the 96 cubicles along a 360-metre-long path that unfolds in the landscape providing a “dynamic” view to those who cross it. A choice consistent with the vision of the School as an open place integrated with the environment. V.G. The “Gusano” is a volume that follows the orography of the terrain. It was a common sense choice. By following the level lines I avoided digging and of course I quickly realized what was needed by distributing the volumes horizontally. Disarticulation allows the changing vision of the landscape, which changes continuously according to the movement of the user. The movements do not take place along an axis, they follow a sinuous route, a connecting path between trees and nature. The cubicles lined up along the Gusano are individual study rooms above which there are the collective test rooms. On the back of the Gusano, in the highest part of the land, I placed the theatre for symphonic music, the one for chamber music, the library, the conference rooms, the choir and administration. L.A. In 1962 the construction site stopped. V.G. In 1962 Cuba fell into a serious political and economic crisis, which is what caused the slowdown and then the abandonment of the school site. Cuba was at “war” and the country’s resources were directed towards other needs. In this affair, the architect Quintana, one of the most powerful officials in Cuba, who had always expressed his opposition to the project, contributed to the decision to suspend the construction of the schools. Here is an extract from a writing by Sergio Baroni, which I consider clarifying: «The denial of the Art Schools represented the consolidation of the new Cuban technocratic regime. The designers were accused of aristocracy and individualism and the rest of the technicians who collaborated on the project were transferred to other positions by the Ministry of Construction [...]. It was a serious mistake which one realises now, when it became evident that, with the Schools, a process of renewal of Cuban architecture was interrupted, which, with difficulty, had advanced from the years preceding the revolution and which they had extraordinarily accelerated and anchored to the new social project. On the other hand, and understandably, the adoption of easy pseudo-rationalist procedures prevailed to deal with the enormous demand for projects and constructions with the minimum of resources» (Baroni 1992). L.A. You also experienced dramatic moments in Cuba. I’m referring in particular to the insane accusation of being a CIA spy and your arrest. V.G. I wasn’t the only one arrested. The first was Jean Pierre Garnier, who remained in prison for seven days on charges of espionage. This was not a crazy accusation but one of the CIA’s plans to scare foreign technicians into leaving Cuba. Six months after Garnier, it was Heberto Padilla’s turn, an intellectual, who remained in prison for 15 days. After 6 months, it was my turn. I was arrested while leaving the Ministry of Construction, inside the bag I had the plans of the port. I told Corrieri, Baroni and Wanda not to notify the Italian Embassy, everything would be cleared up. L.A. Dear Vittorio, I thank you for the willingness and generosity with which you shared your human and professional experience. I am sure that many young students will find your “story” of great interest. V.G. At the end of our dialogue, I would like to remember my teacher: Ernesto Nathan Rogers. I’ll tell you an anecdote: in 1956 I was working on the graphics for the Castello Sforzesco Museum set up by the BBPR. Leaving the museum with Rogers, in the Rocchetta courtyard the master stopped and gives me a questioning look. Looking at the Filarete tower, he told me: we have the task of designing a skyscraper in the centre. Usually skyscrapers going up they shrink. Instead this tower has a protruding crown, maybe we too could finish our skyscraper so what do you think? I replied: beautiful! Later I thought that what Rogers evoked was a distinctive feature of our city. The characters of the cities and the masters who have consolidated them are to be respected. If there is no awareness of dialectical continuity, the city loses and gets lost. It is necessary to reconstruct the figure of the architect artist who has full awareness of his role in society. The work of architecture cannot be the result of a pure stylistic and functional choice, it must be the result of a method that takes various and multiple factors into analysis. In Cuba, for example, the musical tradition, the painting of Wilfredo Lam, whose pictorial lines are recognisable in the floor plan of the Ballet School, the literature of Lezama Lima and Alejo Carpentier and above all the Cuban Revolution were fundamental. We theorised this “total” method together with Ricardo Porro, remembering the lecture by Ernesto Nathan Rogers.