Architecture free exercise in Cuba: «A truncated dream»

Cuban architects look «with pain» how the State prioritizes the construction of luxury hotels on the restoration of the heritage of the island.

«It hurts that colonial and republican architecture is being lost, among the massive exodus of young force, the lack of materials, bureaucratic obstacles and interventions that people do on their own,» says José Carlos Poleo, architect of the Archbishopric of Camagüey.

«It is a regime that insists on continuing to build and waste money in hotels,» he says.

The architects of the island not only face the lack of resources, but also multiple restrictions on their work and the impossibility of exercising it independently. This Thursday, when the Cuban architect’s day is celebrated, Martí News spoke with several professionals from the branch.

Cuban architects cannot exercise with freedom

Edelberto (Bertín) Díaz, with more than 20 years of experience, considers that this is «a gray period» for his profession.

In 2021, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security announced 124 activities that would still be prohibited to exercise on account, including architecture and engineering. In response, architects of the island spread on social networks the interest of the members of that guild that the government authorized them to work as private.

Some argued that the country’s aspirations to build homes, the restoration of houses that require it and the construction and design of cities, cannot be carried out without the help of independent architects, which ensure the correct execution of their project.

«It is a truncated dream,» says Díaz, who believes that they are urgent «that they have just given the architect the possibility of independent exercise.»

An architectural legacy at risk

Architectural activities in Cuba, in addition to centralized and controlled by the Government, do not prioritize the rescue of the constructed heritage.

A sample of this is the recent inauguration of a luxurious hotel in the neighborhood of El Vedado, in Havana, which generated controversy among the Cubans. Citizens and experts questioned the fact that the State allocated resources for tourism, despite the overwhelming crisis that the country lives and, in particular, the tourism sector.

«Far from being inaugurating new works when the country is falling apart, they should rescue a work that was very well conceived, to the point that despite all the lack of maintenance it is there, saying its existence, and nothing is done to maintain it,» says Díaz.

Cuba has nine Sites declared a World Heritage, is the Island Caribbean country that has more goods recognized by the United Nations Educational, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO). The list includes the old city of Havana and its Fortifications System, Trinidad and Valle de los Ingenios, the Castle of San Pedro de la Roca in Santiago de Cuba, the Historic Center of Camagüey, among others.

The architect wonders, from the recent state investments, what Cuba is going to offer to the tourist. «I understand that it is not a luxurious room when he has to go out and find a situation that is increasingly calamity,» he says.

In any case, he points out that it would be more understandable to make updates of the hotels that already exist. «It makes no sense to neglect something that you have already done and start to manufacture something new that is definitely not supported,» he explains, «it is a very dark phenomenon.»

José Enrique Delmonte, architect and conservative of heritage in the Dominican Republic, remembers how in the 19th and 20th centuries, Cuba «reflected extraordinary levels of architecture, emblematic buildings that contrasted with the other Antilles for the degree of complexity of their buildings, and always served as a model in other latitudes.»

But that Cuba is far from what is today home to a diminished and impoverished population, and a political, social and economic structure in crisis. After the arrival of Fidel Castro to power in 1959, the history of the island’s architecture also changed. Experts agree that the following has been a frank deterioration, under guidelines that obey political reasons.