Ciudad Libertad is the former Camp Columbia military base, which served as the headquarters of successive Cuban governments until the revolution. After 1959, Fidel Castro's first act was to convert the sprawling military complex into a school city — a symbolic transformation that has become one of the foundational stories of the revolutionary government's education programme.
The complex now houses several schools and a planetarium, all occupying what were previously military barracks and officer residences. The modernist buildings from the Batista era, repurposed for education, give the campus an unusual character — elegant architecture serving revolutionary purposes. The Museo de Alfabetización (Literacy Museum) on the grounds documents Cuba's celebrated 1961 literacy campaign, in which a million citizens taught another million to read.