Museo de la Imagen
Bernabé Muñiz Guibernau
is located in Calle 8 between the streets 3 and 5, #106 in
Reparto Vista Alegre.
Tuesday -Sunday 09:00-17:00
Museum of the Image presents a
brief history of all kinds of imaging equipment, such as used in
photographing, television, and cinema. It is unique of its kind
in Cuba.
The film cameraman Bernabé
Muñiz Guibernau who was collecting the equipment used in
photographing, and cinema, as well as in broadcasting of radio
and television in his house in Aguilera street since 1973,
transferred all of his collection to this museum, when it was
inaugurated officially in 1992.
The building is divided into
four permanent exhibition rooms, a protocol room, and a cinema &
video room. In the photography room about 250 pieces are
exhibited, such as photo cameras (antique Leicas, Polaroids
etc.), flashes, a stereoscope from 1872, lenses, photometers,
and spy cameras. Among the exponents, the Kodak camera
collection, from the first made by the French to the current
ones, is the most outstanding one.
In the cinema room about 150
pieces are exhibited, such as movie cameras, projectors, film
editors and film splicers. A moviola that belongs to the
documentalist Santiago Álvarez, and the collection of Bell and
Howell cameras of 35 mm and 16 mm that were used in many films,
such as Fall of Machado, Expedition of Cayo Confites, Triumph of
the Revolution, Playa Girón, October Crisis, are worth to see.
In the television room, among
the most important ones are those that belong to the collection
of TV cameras from the beginning of the television broadcasting
in Havana and then in Santiago de Cuba, such as the RCA camera
of 1941 and the Russian KT-87 camera.
In the radio room equipment
used in telegraphy and phone call and a collection of carbon
microphones are exhibited. A radio from 1920 and a victrola from
1904 stand out.
The museum has a cinema and
video room with a capacity for 56 persons. More than 300
historical movies in 16 mm format, such as “Viva la República and Hundred
Years of Struggle”, and “Why Moncada?”, are preserved in a film
vault.