From the 1970s onwards, Las Tunas began to modernize its growth. As a result, sculptures and murals became visible in some parts of the city.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- In the roundabout of the Pediatric Hospital, located on the Central East Highway with the ring road in Las Tunas, a 15-metre high monumental sculpture is exhibited, belonging to the sculptor Pedro Felipe Escobar Mora (1964-2021), a graduate in Sculpture and Drawing from the National School of Art. Sculptor René Peña Carbonell, a graduate in the same specialty from the University of the Arts (ISA in Spanish), and architect Grettel Pérez Labrada also participated in the idea and execution of the work.
Although the duo René Peña and Pedro Escobar signed several of the pieces located in the city, this work in question implicitly carries the aesthetics of the latter, present in dozens of his volumetric creations.
It is no coincidence that this project won the competition organized by the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC in Spanish) and the National Union of Architects and Construction Engineers of Cuba (UNAICC in Spanish) for the 2000 Sculpture Encounter.
Its composition recreates the disembarkation of Christopher Columbus on the island and the industrial progress of Las Tunas, symbolized by technologically important materials such as shaped metal. The geometric base, which in turn protects those in charge of preserving the place from the weather, supports the metal piece in the shape of a grill representing a sail over the 20-meter diameter water mirror, elements valued by the Commission for Monumental and Environmental Sculpture (CODEMA in Spanish), which was in charge of the selection.
Grettel Pérez Labrada provided architectural solutions in the placement of the sculpture, because -being a piece of gigantic proportions- it had to allow the driver visibility from different points of the road, so it was conceived in the form of a sterocelosia, to achieve transparency. There were several challenges, confessed the architect,’because a network of telephone and electricity connections runs underneath. For this reason, it was located opposite to the one it was designed for, offset to one side.
Civil engineer Josué Rodríguez and hydraulic engineer Manuel García were involved in the executive project, calculating the foundation to support the metallic structure and each fastening node, as well as the placement of the pump and the jets, determining the height that each water jet would reach, as well as the recirculation within the circumference.
Another detail: the pavements running from the perimeter of the roundabout to the fountain represent the cardinal points, a kind of orientation for travelers arriving or leaving the city in contact with the best of its art.
