andamios
When I visited Havana in 2000 I was fascinated by the andaminos, the scaffolding that populated the city, particularly in old Havana. Locals then used to call Havana “La Ciudad de San Lázaro” (St. Lazarus’ City), because of all the crutches supporting its buildings preventing them from falling. Behind this ruinous reality hid the barbacoas, which for many were but a continuation of the rotting condition of the city. I take issue with this interpretation and instead think they represent not a decaying city but on the contrary manifest a force of growth and vitality.
barbacoas on fire
In 2000 I became interested in contemporary vernacular building practices in Havana, Cuba, known as barbacoas. Since then I have been slowly researching them and developing a theoretical position on these experiences. One can find these types of interventions just about anywhere in the world. I’m interest in the Cuban case because these are set within a Socialist context were the idea of “proper housing” is a right guaranteed under the 1976 Constitution. The first opportunity I had to present my research in Cuba, was at the 2002 International Architecture Biennial . There I presented some initial theoretical positions that attempted to circumscribed these structures within contemporary forms of expression/resistance. This presentation got picked up in La Jiribilla, and I published it in essay form under the title: Huecos: discursos y prácticas espaciales en la Habana in Pasajes de Arquitectura y Crítica (Madrid, 2002). A year later, I had the opportunity to present this research at the Import/Export: Latin American Urbanities International Conference at Harvard University. A revised version titled: “Ingrown Disorders: the barbacoa structures and the interior city of Havana,” appeared in AULA/ Architecture and Urbanism in La Americas (2003). In 2005 I was involved in building a barbacoa. I presented this experience at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) International Conference in Mexico City (proceedings), the Royal College of Art, London and at the Camp for Oppositional Architecture in Berlin. In 2008, in collaboration with Anthropologist Anna Cristina Pertierra, I wrote a piece published in Buildings & Landscapes/The Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum. I continue to engage this important question, and remain committed to this research.
One of the primary objectives of the program of the Cuban Revolution was to solve once and for all the housing problem in Cuba. To attain this goal the Revolution established a series of laws and institutions that, through the early convulsive period of the Revolution (also known as the “Heroic Period”), would change and transform until their final solidification and bureaucratization in the 1970s. In this early period the Revolution fomented local organizations and grassroots practices that would mark and condition the housing question and would survive its subsequent institutionalization.
barbacoa building
I have been working with two CUJAE students on the barbacoa project. They are helping with sketches and measurements. We have selected a specific building that shows several types of transformations, almost a complete catalog of possibilities. In one of its apartments a barbacoa is being built. They were finishing the placa, a concrete slab, today on Saturday, so I told them that I was going to show up to help. I got there at 11:00 am. (more…)
2 barbacoas and CUJAE
On Thursday I visited my friends in the Office of the Historian. After they finished work around 5 we went to visit the casa de vecindad housing building, next to the church of San Felipe Neri. They have been working on the restoration of the church so we whent in to take a look. The most interesting part of the building is the vault. In the early 20’s if I remember correctly, the church was bought by a local bank. The altar was removed and a vault made in Illinois was put in at the end of the nave behind the removed altar. Today the church is being restored to serve as a venue for concerts. They have excavated under the altar (where it used to be) and found the foundational stone of the church, which dates back to the 18th Century. The OH wants to keep this area visible.
After that we went next door to the casa de vecindad. The building was built in the late 20´s or early 30´s by a local entrepreneur of Catalan descent with the last name of Sarrá. He owned a pharmaceutical company and a pharmacy located in old Havana on Compostela Street, in front of the convent of St Teresa. The casa de vecindad has 65 two-room units. The first room being of 4.5 x 4m and the second of 4 x 6m. The height of the standard unit being of 4.15m. All rooms face the interior courtyard which is formed by the circulation arcade. The building was built as a casa de arriendo, an apartment building. Today it holds around 200 plus people. We met F who is 49 years old. She told us about the water problems, filtraciones, that plague most if not all buildings in Havana. She has a barbacoa that serves as the master bedroom; she shares it with her husband. They built it themselves out of wood, to long ago to remember. The barbacoa divides the height of the first room, lowering it to 2.20m on the first level. This leaves only 1.94m for the second level (the structure for the barbacoa occupies 0.30m.) The second room is used as the dining room of the family, and dormitory of her daughter who has a small baby. F does not have problems with the water supply, when there is water. She has a faucet in her apartment. The bathroom and the kitchen are attached to the second room. A service corridor runs through the backside of the building, this space being used for the said programs. She does not want to leave old Havana. She would like to make improvements to her apt. but she does not know if they (the people living there) are going to stay or not. Next door to F lives A. A is 63 years old. She lives alone. Her husband died some time ago. She is thin with vivid eyes and sharp mind. She moved to her home in January 6, 1940. J, her father in law, was the concierge of the building when she moved. Then, she said, the building was very well kept. She loves to live in old Havana, and is not going anywhere. All her memories are here in this apartment, she said. The apartment has not suffered any changes since she first moved in. It is well kept, clean yet aged. It needs to be painted, but has all the original wood trims, doors and windows. She has no water. The president of the comité took it away from her, she said. They want to charge her 100 p to install water. She does not have that kind of money she said. Now she takes water from F’s hose, next door. Their patios, unlike everyone else?s, have no fence and are connected. She told us that she likes her community, old and new residents, and that she wants to stay here, although that she would like to improve her apt. a little. She is one of the oldest residents. “When I came here,” she said, “there was a sign that said: No Children, No Dogs and No Blacks.”
After that we went drinking to a bar next to the Simon Bolivar Square in old Havana, we drank and talked until around 10:30-11. I was going to the Architecture School the next day to be in a 2nd year mid-review. I went to the hotel grabbed some things, left another and went off with my friends, I and P, both architects. I had to go to a birthday party for the mother of one of his students in Vedado. We left the bar, bought rum and Kola, Cuban Coke on the way and arrived at the party at 12:30-1. The part was pretty much over. A couple of students were working for their presentation. We stayed drank, talked, prepared a possible studio about the barbacoas; all this until 4:30 am. Sometime in there people went for more rum, others for more ice. The rum run party came back quickly, the ice run party came back after more than 1 hour, unsuccessful. It was 4:30 so I went to bed, students stayed up working, I followed shortly. Couldn’t sleep much if any at all, it was hot and muggy. (It is still hot and muggy! Someone said that I was very brave to come to Cuba in summer.) We woke up at 5:45. We had to leave around 6:10, walk about 25 blocks to catch the 6:30 bus for the CUJAE (the University City), and got there around 8am for reviews. There are only two CUJAE buses one in the morning and another in the afternoon. You can take other buses, public buses, the 190 and the 34 are somewhat convenient. CUJAE is 25 kilometers from the center of Havana, which is damn far for a city where public transportation is one of its biggest problems. Bus service is consistent yet, you have to wait for them, that is WAIT. When we arrive around 8 there were about 15 students from a total of 52. All of them were in the bus with us. We picked all of them along the way, so we could have started the review on the bus, except of course we had no pin up space and because the engineering students would have protested in some form or another. We started reviews at 8:30, break at 12:30 for lunch, we eat by the street vendors in front of the university, pan con croquetas y pan con bola de papa and orange “juice,” went back and finished reviews around 3:30.
To go back we tried to take the 190 bus, but I who stayed “10 minutes” giving reviews to the students from the interior of the country, did not arrive in time so we miss three 190 and two 34 buses. The bus system is interesting when someone arrives to the bus stop, which is covered, thank god!, the person asks ultimo, last. This gives you a place in the line. This system assures that if you get early enough in the line and if the bus comes empty of half empty you will have a seat on the bus. You won’t have to stand all the way, because trust me, everyone is going to Havana. When everyone in my party got to the bus stop, we were 4, they decided to take a bus to Boyeros avenue, the avenue that goes to the airport, and from there take a botero, a local cab. We did this and didn’t have to wait much. We took a black 50 something Chevy, well it took us 10p per person. Lets say that the car ran. We picked up one person on the way, tried to pick up one more but alas, he did not fit. We were in old Havana by 5:45-6. The botero route ended next to the Capitolio, so we decided to go to Plaza Vieja to the inauguration of a Swiss brewery. We made it to Plaza Vieja but the brewery was closed, the inauguration was at 9am, but everyone thought that it would remain open. Afterwards we ran into some Europeans that are working at the OH. We went to the terrace of the Ambos Mundos Hotel for drinks. More Europeans came. We decided to leave because as the Cuans put it, these people don’t mix very well. We were out of dollars, so we went in search for bars in mn (moneda nacional) i.e. pesos, but to no avail. They were all out of beer; plenty of rum, no beer. It was way to hot for rum. Thus, we went to the hotel for some dolares, went to eat some pizzas and to a bar in the Manzana de Gomez. A bar visited by locals but paid in dollars. We had a couple of beers and called it a night around 11:30. When I got back to the room I took a very long shower. I had not showered since the day before.
water
Today I spoke to A in Havana Street. Her living conditions are not bad. She shares a two story 4 x 6m space with 4 family members in a ciudadela, a building which has been taken over for housing. The building dates from 1828 and houses legally (people who are in the census) 11 families, a total of 43 people. The total number of inhabitants is round 50 something; not bad for old Havana. She has been living there for about 20 years. The place she lives in with the barbacoa was already built when she got there. She has made some improvements. We spoke about many things. One of them was water. The building has a cistern that dates back to the early 19th Century. It worked well until a couple of years ago a leak from the sewage system contaminated the cistern. They tried to correct the problem with no avail. Now they get their water from a hose that is connected to the main line. This is not unusual for the city. She has five tanks of 55 gallons each (or 12 buckets per tank I was informed). She used to have only two tanks, which were in very bad conditions. The government suplied her with three new drums. She kept the old ones repairing them with cement. The tanks are above the bathroom in a one-story addition. To get the water there and to the tanks on the second story of the building, the community bought two motores, pumps at $59 USD a piece. With this they don’t have to carry water in buckets any more. She fills the tanks every other day. One must note that they don’t have water supplied from the main line everyday. Although, lately there has been no water shortage. Each resident pays 1.50 pesos a month for water, fix rate. The tanks like all tanks in Havana are connected to local pipes, which distribute the water by gravity. All water pressure is gravity driven. All pipes were installed by them, her brother did all the work. She uses about a tank every 3 days. Aida and her family are very cautious about water usage and try save as much as possible. She does laundry twice a month along with other members of the community. Laundry takes one whole tank. She uses a Soviet made washing machine that comes with a spin-dryer. She borrows it from a neighbor. She said that those washers are lo mejor, the best, that they work very well, even today, meaning they are pretty old, although the spin-dryer she told me always broke. She doesn’t know one machine with a spin-dryer that works.
property explained
I could not imput an entry yesterday because I was told, there were problems with the system. The problem was with the “Capisol” (trademark) system, that very Cuban mixture of capitalism and socialism. The attendant was to busy surfing the net to plug in the password for me to surf the net.
Yesterday in the early afternoon, I met J. He is approximately 30years old and works as a health promoter. He is a social worker on HIV prevention. He is gay and very vocal. He explained to me the workings of private property in Cuba. There are three types of property, he said: 1) is propiedad, right down property where the state gives you a property title to the place/space you live. Of course, you cannot sell, this property for in the end (like everything in Cuba) it is still property of the state. With a property title though you can perform an exchange, a permuta it is called; a procedure which is very popular here in Havana. You see signs of se permuta this for that all over the city. 2) Is arrendatario, simply a renter. If you are a renter you rent from the state, and you rent for life. You usually rent apartments, maybe a house (if there is one which has not been converted into apartments or has not been rented to those real renters, foreigners who pay in dollars.) 3) Is usufructuario people who are “beneficiaries.” Beneficiaries don’t pay at all. They are beneficiaries of the state. To be one of these lucky people, you have to live in one room no bigger than 3 x 4 meters. This is thus the typical size of all rooms that have barbacoas. The beneficiaries law is base on square meters not on cubic meters, thus as long as you keep the 3 x 4 (approximate) floor plan you are a usufructuario and pay no rent to the state, no matter if you have one or five levels above you. If a room (which is the denomination for a space of 3 x 4) is larger (or made larger through transformations) than the said 3 x 4 measure it becomes an apartment, and you become an arrendatario, paying rent to the state. Not a very desirable thing to have done to you. This is done through a derecho de resolución It also implies a betterment of your living conditions. Now as everything in Cuba this is a “flexible” law, for I have seen spaces bigger than 3 x 4 that ar enot rented. Generally, people who live in spaces bigger than 3 x 4 meters have been living there for a very long time.
J, for example has been living in his 3 x 4 flat (he “owns” and extra meter but it is part of the public corridor, thus he can’t enclose it, so his flat will never be converted to an apartment) for only 10 years, after his wife left it to him. He lives alone, although when I met him he had four family members form Santiago “visiting.” D who is 75, and has been living in the same space for over 50 years, before the revolution, has an ample living space. She lives on the roof level with two large rooms 4 x 5m (approx.), sharing one with her daughter (who works for the state airline), a kitchen about the same size, an “extra room” which she has made her bedroom, and a very large terrace which used to be communal but now, because of the bad conditions of the floor no one else can use. There, she hangs here laundry to dry. Since she is the only one who “can use it,” everyone else, about 18 people total, is forced to hang-dry their laundry in the patio, which is a multi purpose space, circulation corridor, social condenser and mixer space. D’s reassessment of the overall space usage has been the source of several conflicts.
Any improvement that does not alter the official 3 x 4 meter plan needs no prior approval from “Leal,” that is from the Office of the Historian. Alterations or improvements that transgress this spatial enclosure need to be pre-approved by this office. Of course as examples show is this a “flexible” rule.
4 barbacoas
Today I visited 4 buildings with barbacoas. I concentrated on Villegas street, in Old Havana. I was trying to make it to the Santa Teresa Convent, but got sidetracked. Some people are very resistant to talk with me, usually the men, although they don’t mind me taking pictures. Women have been very open. I met R who wants to redo her 4″ x 6″ (approx.) bathroom. She needs to hire someone to do it. They want to charge her $500 USD. She told me that 11 years ago she did the bathroom for 600 pesos; that then it was easy to get materials but that now things are too expensive. She lives with a daughter and a granddaughter. They all share the upstairs room, the barbacoa, which is approximately 10″ x 12″, the kitchen living room and bathroom are downstairs. She prefers to move to Alamar, then she could have her own room she said. She wants to live alone. She said that she wouldn’t miss Old Havana. That it is too noisy. She lives in Aguacate St., which has much commercial traffic; it is full of buildings used for storage. She has a daughter in Spain who helps her. The conditions of her flat are not the best but certainly not the worst, except for two structural beams that have cracked, and should be of concern.
C who lives in Villegas St., helped her husband, who is a construction worker, build her barbacoa. She built the kitchen, she said. She is 47 years old and fiery; has been living there for 31 years. The condition of her home is average, some ruins, some ok parts. They have gravel and scaffolding in the courtyard. They are waiting for cement, she said. The room that she shares with her husband is 2 x 3 meters.
Y lives with her daughter, her dad and her mother M in an 8″ x 21″ two story structure, in Villegas street near the Cristo del Buen Viaje church. She was very open and showed me just about everything. They are having problems with humidity and with rain. Their house is split by a (most likely) 19th C stained glass arch (arco de medio punto). The house that they occupy which has 22 rooms, I don’t know exactly how many families are there, was a very elegant building. The stain glass arch was her window; she slept facing it, with her parents in the same room. She told me how her parents couldn’t have sex because they all shared the same room. Eight years ago they made the expansion that created her room, destroying half of the stained glass window. There is a door now. She shares the room with hey 3-year-old daughter. She is not married, and is presently unemployed for she had to stop working to take care of her mother, who was diagnosed with a spinal tumor. The state of the structure is very good. Good materials, considering what you can get here, very clean and ordered. They are Christians she told me. Her daughter goes to the archbishop’s Catholic school. She is also a member of the party.
She invited tonight to the CDR meeting. (CRDs are the committees for the defense of the revolution. They are present over the entire city. The meeting was held on the street. There were about 30 people present. They wanted to re-institute the vigilacia, the watch. Someone suggested to enhance the protection against imperialism, to which someone else shyly said that he hadn’t seen any imperialistas in his block. They talked about voluntary service rebuilding some building somewhere (this is part of their duty assigned by the government), and about trying to enhance participation on the direction of the committee. I was asked to introduce myself and the project on the barbacoas. The meeting did not last very long, and apparently was not very effective. They should put pressure to help them rebuild their houses. They have tried to do so; Y said, but there is great need in Havana, too many projects.