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Eliana María Cárdenas Sánchez (La Habana, 1951 – Madrid, May 4th, 2010) was a Cuban architect, PhD in Technical Sciences, senior researcher at the Faculty of Architecture of the  Higher Polytechnic Institute José Antonio Echevarría (ISPJAE), writer. She is deemed one of the most significant theorists and critics of Cuban architecture.

She ?excelled? as critic, thinker, historian, essayist, poet and theorist of latin-american architecture and urbanism. She was active as a director of the Scientific Revue of Architecture and Urbanism at "Revista científica de Arquitectura y Urbanismo", member of the ICOMOS committee and vice president of DOCOMOMO. She is considered the principal female historian of Cuban architecture of the second half of the 20th century.

In 2000 she received the FPAA Pan American Award in Research and theory.

Early life
Cárdenas was born in La Havana in a working class family that resided in Guanabacoa municipality of the Cuban capital. Her mother was working as a teacher who cared for the education of her two children – Eliana and Julio.

Towards the end of the sixties, as part of a group of renowned architects in Cuba – Fernando Salinas, Roberto Segre, Mario Coyula, among others – she stood out as one of the main protagonists of the struggle to recover architectural culture and return to the Faculty of Architecture of Havana its artistic and cultural profile that it had lost after the occupation of it by the Ministry of Construction in 1967. Soon after graduation as an architect in 1972 she joined the Research Group on the History of Architecture and Urbanism (GIHAH) led by Roberto Segre, who became her great teacher, friend and co-worker.

The road was not easy for her to be a woman, black and from a humble family. However, her decisive character together with her brilliant intelligence, perseverance, commitment, enthusiasm and great commitment, made her an exceptional person.

Research Career
During his career he devoted special interest to the investigation of a wide selection of subjects, specializing mainly in the
 * theory, history and historiography of the city
 * architecture, art and design
 * territorial and urban planning
 * the conservation and comprehensive safeguarding of cities and historic centres in the context of sustainable human development
 * Cuban culture and identity

through renowned professors such as William Alonso, Paulo Armindo de Azevedo, Mario Bonilla, Nikolai Godlevskii, Gui Bonsieppe, Carlos García Pleyán, Sven Hesselgren, Borja Huidobro, Moisei Kagan, Valeri Korchernikov, Kevin A. Lynch, Tomás Maldonado, Manuel Moreno Fraginals, Sylvio Mutal, Ricardo Porro, F. Prat Puig, Fernando Salinas, Claude Schnaidt, Roberto Segre, Orlando Suárez Tajonera, Edith Venado, Yukka Yukhileto, among others.

En el año 2000 recibió el Premio de la Federación Panamericana de Arquitectos en Investigación y Teoría.

Visitó Angola, donde contribuyó a la fundación de la cátedra de Teoría e Historia de la Arquitectura en la Universidad Agostinho Neto.

In 2009 she participated as a counterpart of a research project between the Faculty of Architecture in Havana (CUJAE) and the Department of Urbanism of the University of Granada (UGR) Guanabacoa 2025: Hacia una sostenibilidad en defensa de la Identidad, which is why she travels to Spain in February 2010 to participate in a series of research meetings and give talks and conferences in various cities: Granada, Sevilla, Córdoba, Valladolid and Barcelona.

Among her last talks – given in Spain in February 2010 – we highlight
 * Ciudad, Arquitectura y Género at the University of Granada;
 * Procesos actuales de conservación del patrimonio urbano at the University Institute of Urbanism of Valladolid;
 * Cuba: 50 años de arquitectura at the UPC in Barcelona.

In her latest research, she paid special attention to the possible contributions that gender approaches could offer to the critical-theory-practice shortlist. This was reflected in the project El sentido de identidad en el ambiente construido habanero which was concerned with women as users of architectural and urban spaces in La Habana. Cárdenas had been promoting among other colleagues research on the role of Cuban women architects throughout history.

The work on her second degree doctoral thesis remained unfinished due to her sudden death on March 4, 2010 at the age of 59. With her husband Aramís Alemán she was going to get her plane from Madrid to her home city La Habana when she suffered a stroke.

As a tribute and enhancement of her career, from the Department of Urbanism of the University of Granada and the Faculty of Architecture of the ISPJAE in Havana is underway the ECAR PROJECT: "Ecar" is the way in which Eliana signed her documents. Thus, Proyecto Ecar is a campaign of awareness, transfer of knowledge and academic training that aims to value the life and work of this Ibero-American intellectual, and to unite those who were linked to her both in Cuba and Spain to promote in Cuba critical thoughts about the current socio-territorial processes from perspectives for equality and sustainability. To this end, two existing chairs will be promoted in the Faculty of Architecture of Havana and the Faculty of Constructions of the University of Camagüey, dedicated from the university extension to promote urban-architectural culture.

https://rau.cujae.edu.cu/index.php/revistaau/search/authors/view?givenName=Eliana&familyName=C%C3%A1rdenas&affiliation=&country=CU&authorName=C%C3%A1rdenas%2C%20Eliana

List of works
Her work can be consulted in the significant number of published texts of his authorship, available in books and magazines. Some articles from the magazine Arquitectura y Urbanismo of the Faculty of Architecture of the Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverría-Cujae are available online.

https://rau.cujae.edu.cu/index.php/revistaau