Where the Sun and the
Apostle Melts in the Firmament
By Miguel Díaz Nápoles
Translated by Ernesto Gutiérrez Pino
The
Marti´s Square in Las Tunas city, it is a sunny square . And it was
conceived like that, because this is a place dedicated to the memory of
our José Martí, for who the sun was a constant, because for the Apostle,
dignity was an ethical fundamental category, and in addition to this,
the prefix of that word means light in Sanskrit language.
Together with Martí, the sun is the great main character of this
beautiful sculptural work, conceived by the eminent architect Domingo
Alás Rosell who was born in Santiago de Cuba, but he lives in Las Tunas
now, he kept in mind the main star in order to make known several facts
related with the Cuban National Hero’s life.
This Square is conformed by an astronomical trilogy: the solar clock,
the solar calendar and the solar synchronous converter reflector.
The
clock is horizontal and has 7.20 meters diameter. Its gnomon (like a
kind of beam that ends in sharp tip) has an angle of 20 degrees and 57
minutes, that makes it correspond with the latitude of the Square, and
it is oriented toward the north-south geographical position, for that
reason its superior edge remains parallel to the axis of the Earth
rotation.
It has a precision of five minutes, that is to say, it exactly defines
the solar hour every five minutes.
This clock presents a permanent backwardness of seven minutes, 48
seconds 80 centesimals, in relationship with the western 75 meridian of
Greenwich, and it is supported by a graph of equation of time to rectify
the hours.
Related
to the calendar, it marks the dates with the shade that reflects the tip
of the gnomon on a series of hyperbolic lines in which stand out the
solstices of summer and winter and the equinoxes of spring and fall, in
addition to January 28 and May 19. It also has in the line of the
meridian, 65 dates of Marti´s life which are marked at the moment of the
solar culmination, when the sun acquires its highest angular position in
the horizon, and it is the right moment in which it passes by the
meridian of the place: 75 degrees and 57 minutes.
The calendar also marks the solar height in a series of concentric
circles, that form the geometric place of the points that belong to an
interval of solar heights of around 15 degrees.
The
reflector is a mirror located on the head of a pedestal, which is
oriented according to the solar coordinates (azimuth and solar height)
based on May 19 at 2:30 in the afternoon, standard time, moment of
Marti´s death, with the purpose of reflecting the solar light and make
it illuminate the face of the Apostle’s sculpture.
The Marti´s Square, located in the place where long time ago remained
the military administration of the colony, has other symbols around its
structure: palms, two seats in cylindrical form with an opening that
offers the idea of Spanish bastions taken under control; a monument to Ángel
de la Guardia on the exact place where he fell down in combat, the
monument where Marti´s bust is, and a mural on which it is drawn fire,
smoke, huddle of horses and columns inclined with architectural current
codes, that do not offer the idea that they fall, but that they get up
for the new city.
For all this Marti´s Square, in Las Tunas city, it is a place that
deserves to be visited not only for its inhabitants, but for its
visitors as well. Everybody who goes by this city, Balcony of the Cuban
East, it is difficult for him to avoid the temptation of stoping at this
beautiful place, where sun and Apostle melt in the firmament.
