Jose Antonio Echeverria Birthplace Museum in the Cardenas City treasures the life and work of the Cuban student leader
Jose Antonio Echeverria Birthplace Museum is opposite the Jose Estrada Palma Old Square, which now bears the name of the student leader Jose Antonio Echeverria, in the Cardenas City , Matanzas Province.
Less than half a century of the foundation of the Cardenas City , this two-story house, built in 1873 of masonry (stones or blocks of limestone abundant in the region and present in most buildings of the city ) rose neoclassical , considered as an eclecticism of neoclassical base.
In the house there are classical elements (the facade and some outdoor lounges) and other more primitive which reflexes of the persistence of the building traditions of the eighteenth century domestic architecture present in most of the cities in the interior of the island.
It has influences of American architecture, already present in Cuba since the eighteenth century, reflected in its monumental “spiral” staircase that communicates both floors of the house.
In this house Jose Antonio Echeverria was born, for which it was declared a National Monument in 1971 and converted into a museum in 1973 as a history section of the Oscar Maria de Rojas Museum.
In 2001 it became the Jose Antonio Echeverria Birthplace Museum, with a new repair that changed its theme because of the request of the fighters who belonged to the Revolutionary Directorate and became an independent museum where the visitor can study and disclose the figure of the student leader and student struggle against Batista next to a courageous group of young revolutionaries.
Restoration and rehabilitation Jose Antonio Echeverria Birthplace Museum
Starting on December 24, 2003 a restoration and full rehabilitation of the Museum was decided, in which the structural and cultural heritage assets were seized, returning to the house, its original style of the building with floors, roofs, carpentry, painting , fittings and windows that give it its architectural beauty.
Inside, you can see valuable and original objects, photographs and historical documents related to the life and work of Jose Antonio Echeverria and his families and comrades as well as the 1954 Chrysler car used by the student leader in some revolutionary activities.
The property is organized as follows: the ground floor is divided in the hall, the Architectural Environment Salon, Echeverria Bianchi Family Room, the Room of the childhood of Jose Antonio Echeverria, the Room of Jose Antonio Echeverria university period (1950-1956), the Hall of the Actions of March 13, 1957, the bathroom, kitchen and meeting room.
Upstairs on the other side it is the room that exhibits the Revolutionary Unity, the Temporary Exhibition Room, the Room that shows the FEU History (history of a university organization) and the University Chair.
