Presidio Modelo
A Panopticon Prison Of Five Vast Circular Blocks Built Under Machado In The 1920s, Where Fidel Castro And The Moncada Attackers Were Held From 1953 To 1955, Now Standing Empty As A Museum · Nueva Gerona, Isla de la Juventud
Machado's government built this between 1926 and 1931 on the model of Joliet in Illinois, and it is the most complete panopticon left standing anywhere. Four circular cell blocks, each five storeys of cells ringing a central watchtower that guards reached through an underground tunnel so that no prisoner ever saw them arrive, plus a circular dining hall. It was designed for around two thousand men and held perhaps three times that. Fidel Castro and the survivors of the Moncada attack were imprisoned here from 1953 to 1955 - in a separate hospital wing rather than the blocks, where Castro ran a political school for them - and were released under an amnesty. The prison closed in 1967. The blocks now stand empty, open to the sky in places, and you walk into the middle of one and look up. Nothing is lit, staged or explained inside them, which is exactly why they work - five storeys of cells in a circle, and acoustics built so that a voice at the centre reaches every one of them.
Presidio Modelo, Reparto Chacon, Nueva Gerona, Isla de la Juventud, Nueva Gerona, Isla de la Juventud, Cuba
Open daytime hours most days with a weekly closing day and a small charge; the hospital building where Castro was held is the museum, and the circular blocks are open ground you walk into. PARTS OF THE STRUCTURES ARE DETERIORATING AND HAVE BEEN FENCED OFF - what is enterable changes. A few kilometres east of Nueva Gerona; a taxi is needed.