Micro Construction Brigades in Cuba

By Eduardo N. Cordoví Hernandez

HAVANA TIMES – In Cuba, since the beginning of the so-called Prodigious Decade (1960s), everything has functioned on impulse! Periodically, the entire country throws itself into a national whirlwind, focusing on one activity or another. Then, suddenly, everything loses strength and starts to disappear, concluding in disaster or ending well, even though a few years later, it is discovered that something went wrong, did not turn out well, or did not progress as planned. This cycle continues until a new general upheaval appears, some significant event that directs the entire population towards a particular purpose. The state prioritizes a specific issue, giving the impression that everything else loses meaning.

Microbrigades emerged in the 1970s. As the name suggests, they were small groups of men and women aimed at addressing the housing needs in the country. An administrative framework was established to govern technical activities, logistical support, bureaucratic tasks, and all kinds of activities, responding to political imperatives.

These brigades of inexperienced builders were tasked with completing a five-story building with twenty apartments within a year. They were composed of workers in need of housing, and their work centers would pay their established salaries during construction. The workdays were not eight hours but extended to ten or even twelve hours a day, including Saturdays, Sundays, and, if necessary, nights.

Generally, not everyone knew about construction trades, but the Ministry of Construction provided urban planning projects, typical construction plans, general technical assistance, quality control, heavy equipment, etc. Over time, these individuals, who knew nothing about such tasks, would accumulate experience, information, skills, and soon there would be a vast number of masons, plumbers, electricians, carpenters… It would be wonderful.

On the other hand, indispensable personnel in the state companies and institutions would remain in their positions but had to contribute the most hours of voluntary work during vacations, holidays, etc., whether or not they needed housing. They did so to accumulate merits or to obtain some household appliance, such as a television, or at least an honorary diploma as an outstanding worker, serving as a recommendation for joining the Communist Party (PCC) or the Communist Youth Organization (UJC).

That era of microbrigades was a lot of fun. It involved hard work, but it was an adventure, a challenge, an escape. One felt free, responsible, and important. The food was abundant, quite good and cheap, snacks were free and delicious. There was no shortage of yogurt, bread with cheese or cream cheese, with guava paste, with croquettes… It was something else.

Indeed, everyone felt committed, interested, involved because, in the end, they were building their own roof. In reality, the Microbrigades Movement is the one that has survived the longest, although with ups and downs. The housing problem is constant and grows geometrically.

In the history of this movement, there are many deficiencies; one was the delivery of completed buildings. Almost always, it was in line with a specific deadline; a certain number of apartments were planned to be delivered, let’s say, by July 26, the anniversary of the assault on the Moncada Barracks, or by December 5, Builder’s Day, or for any significant event. As a result, technological recommendations were violated (and are violated) to meet the date.

It could happen that, since the “builders” were not really builders but office workers, mechanics, or nurses, and not knowing basic aspects of interpreting plans, they placed rebar of a certain diameter and shape, or in a certain position, or not enough. The same happened, in correspondence, with carpenters, plumbers, electricians, painters…

Something real is that it was the same type of building for the entire country; the famous E-14 model. A rectangular box with forty apartments, two stairwells, and five floors; once one was done, the microbrigade would then repeat it because they were all the same. But in the same way, there was a human problem; there was someone who was once a bricklayer but worked in a printing press. When he arrived in a microbrigade area where no one knew anything about construction, as the saying goes: in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, he became a figure with decision-making power. The technicians advising these areas (which corresponded to a future urbanization) attended to many buildings, sometimes more than one area, had open work schedules, no control over them, and were always lost, leading the “bricklayer” to decide on a structural matter, which became known as a “libretazo.”

The “libretazo” was unauthorized, criticized, but very common; even if it turned out well and sometimes punished if it went wrong.

If a delivery date was approaching, and any technical inconvenience or construction activity seemed, due to its complexity, to jeopardize it, or it was assumed that it could compromise it, alternatives to execution immediately began to be managed, variations of the official project, or if not enough, go to another Micro to see how they solved the mess. And collectively, they reached absurd agreements to overcome some difficulties.

Other times, it happened that some provincial or national leader visited the sites, who only made a comment about how he thought something would look better, stronger, or more beautiful, which was taken as a superior order.

In this way, today in any of these constructions, there are floors with joints that, due to haste, were not properly filled with melted cement, causing leaks to the lower apartments, or at least, if one is not attentive, the raised edges of the tiles, which, if they don’t cause a stumble, can at least keep the cobbler busy. Uneven steps in the stairs. Doors that jam when closing. Cracks in the walls. Collapsed walls… and so on.

Suddenly, someone noticed that such a quantity of identical buildings gave an impression of monotony that marred the surroundings. Both the E-14; whose technological complexity combined traditional brick and concrete block construction with prefabricated floor and roof slabs; and the Gran Panel, which was another system used to expedite construction, as it was entirely prefabricated; were simple rectangular boxes, and from a distance, the new neighborhoods looked like a field of shoeboxes. That someone was architect Cordovés who, besides being a professor at the Faculty of Architecture at CUJAE (Julio Antonio Echeverría University City), was the technical head in the Alta-Habana area. He, with a team of disciples, created the modified E-14 model that ended up being called the Alta-Habana Modification.

With few variations and still being a rectangular structure, it brought substantial advantages in terms of functionality and execution. The Ministry of Construction and the National Microbrigades Directorate adopted the project to implement it in the country.

During the Mariel exodus (1980) events, architect Cordoves had the idea of changing his fate with his recognized talent, taking advantage of what was almost a national madness in those days.

When the news of his intention to leave was known, his car was destroyed, his phone cut off, his house stoned, and he was attacked until he needed to be hospitalized. The Mariel crisis passed, and he could not leave. Expelled from the university as a professor, from his job in the microbrigades, he survived with the help of some daring disciples and friends who visited him, encouraged him, and provided financial assistance until, in the end, he was able to leave.

Read more from the diary of Eduardo N. Cordovi here on Havana Times.