Cuban architect Ricardo Porro died December 25 of heart failure in Paris. He was the leading creator of the most outstanding and controversial architectural achievement of the Cuban Revolution, the Escuelas Nacionales de Arte. He was 89.

Ricardo Porro Hidalgo was born in 1925 in Camagüey, Cuba. As a young man he moved to the capitol where he studied architecture at the Universidad de la Habana. There he became acquainted with Fidel Castro whose best friend from law school was the brother of Porro’s fiancée Elena Freyre de Andrade y Veulans; the the three shared many mid-day dinners and boisterous conversations in the Freyre de Andrade house.