Revolution Museum | Granma Memorial

Museum of the Revolution Havana

Located at the former Presidential Palace of the Cuban Republic, it was inaugurated in 1920 and constructed by architects Paul Belau (Belgian) and Carlos Moruri (Cuban). All the interior decoration was made by the American Company Tiffany´s. It is the museum of the national rebelliousness where through of pictures, documents, arms and numerous historical objects you obtain a real vision of the struggles of the Cuban people to obtain their total independence and sovereignty since the first settler until present time.

The main entrance has two outstanding items: the remain of El Angel lookout-part of the wall that surrounded the city in the colonial period, and the SAU-100 self-propelled gun used by Fidel Castro during the U:S: invasion to Bay of Pigs in April 1961.

Its outside appearance is an overtone combination with some tendencies of the fashionable architecture on its time, where to stand up its forms and corpulence by its elegance and perfection. In the superior brick railing of the building, just in the center of its principal façade you can appreciate a labored coat of the Republic, while its dome is one of the most beautiful of the city.

In the lobby you’ll find a painting by Armando Menocal ( Cuban artist 1861-1942) showing one episode of the Independence War of the XIX century : the decisive victory of the Commander Calixto Garcia over the Spanish troops in Las Tunas, former Oriente´s province.

On the second floor you can visit different important places like the Presidential Office, the room from which the dictator Fulgencio Batista escaped in March 13, 1857 using a secret exit, when a group of revolutionaries asalted the building to execute him for his felonies; The Mirror Salon exhibits a monumental fresco in the ceiling made by the Armando Menocal too, so-called “The glorification of the native land”.

On the other side you can find the Granma Memorial, which exhibits important historic pieces linked to the war of the liberation and subsequent battles waged by the Cubans. The Granma, a yacht in which Fidel Castro and his comrades sailed from Mexico to Cuba on December 1956 to begin the war against Batista´s dictatorship is also exhibited inside.