Refinement of Form: A New Analysis of Cuba’s National School of Ballet

Abstract

Originally constructed in 1965, the modernist and experimental structures of the National School of Arts (ISA) in Havana, Cuba have attracted renewed scholarly and architectural interest in the last two decades. A recent grant from the Getty Foundation in rehabilitation of the ISA schools has compelled investigation into the structural performance of the school buildings, especially the reinforced-concrete and thin-tile domes of the Ballet School. The purpose of this investigation is to evaluate the structural behavior and failure states of the Choreography Theater, the largest dome in the Ballet School, in order to inform preservation and rehabilitation efforts to the structure. In order to analyze the Choreography Theater’s structural performance, the dome was modeled in ABAQUS, a finite element analysis (FEA) software, and subjected to three load cases which represent realistic extreme loading of the structure: simple gravity loading, hurricane wind loading combined with gravity loading, and settlement of foundation pillars through the removal of boundary conditions. The FEA results indicated that the dome has sufficient structural capacity to withstand gravity and hurricane wind loads without long-term structural damage; while the removal of two boundary conditions will induce local structural damage, it will not produce global structural failure. The FEA results also identified the connections of the lower ribs as the most at-risk elements in the structure, which was validated by observed damage in the dome. The findings of this analysis have identified restoration priorities in the proposed preservation of the Ballet School as well as determined future topics for investigation of the Choreography Theater.