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PLACA Documentary Series presents: Habana � Arte Nuevo de Hacer Ruinas

341 Eggers Hall

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"Habana – Arte Nuevo de Hacer Ruinas" Directed by Florian Borchmeyer and Matthias Hentschler, 2006 In the last years, Havana, capital of socialist Cuba, has become famous all over the world for the morbid charm of its flaking façades. Its beauty resides in the poetry of its ruins.  The ruins of Havana are far less poetic for the people who inhabit them. Houses frequently collapse causing fatalities. The decay of this city and its living quarters is a continual source of both danger and shame for its inhabitants.  The film portrays five persons in Havana who reside in buildings at various states of decay.  They all try to escape from a life which risks to become ruined by the fact of inhabiting a ruin. Habana – Arte Nuevo de Hacer Ruinas tells the stories of people who are waiting every day to be buried by the buildings they are living in. They suffer from living in ruins but nonetheless refuse to move out. Anywhere else but in Cuba, these buildings would have long ago been renovated, torn down, or turned into museums. Through this, the film presents the ambivalent admixture of magic and destruction. At the same time it captures the final moments of these buildings before they’re renovated – or simply collapse altogether.  

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Exterior of Maxwell in black and white when there was no Eggers building

We’re Turning 100!


To mark our centennial in the fall of 2024, the Maxwell School will hold special events and engagement opportunities to celebrate the many ways—across disciplines and borders—our community ever strives to, as the Oath says, “transmit this city not only not less, but greater, better and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.”

Throughout the year leading up to the centennial, engagement opportunities will be held for our diverse, highly accomplished community that now boasts more than 38,500 alumni across the globe.