cohabitar
Just out is the volume COHABITAR, edited by Anna Nufrio in Barcelona. This book gathers the experience initiated in 2004 in the international seminar INSIDE LA HABANA which I organized with Anna, with the help of my great Cuban friends. The intent of this international seminar was to present architecture students with a first approximation to the city. It involved students and faculty from the Clemson University Architecture Center in Barcelona, Spain, the Conseil d’Architecture, d’Urbanisme et Environnement, France, the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Spain, and the Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverría, Cuba, all with the support of the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana, Cuba. The thirty European students and four faculty members who participated in the research seminar spent two weeks in Havana collaborating with Cuban architecture students mapping stories of the city, examining Havana’s interaction with the sea and documenting housing conditions in the historic center. To aid in their investigations, I organized seminars with practicing Cuban architects, well-known artists, writers, filmmakers, sociologists and research professionals. For the conclusion of the seminar, the students presented their work to the public through models, sketches and videos. I hoped to continue INSIDE LA HABANA with U.S. students and faculty, but, because of continuing policy issues during the Bush Administration, it was impossible. I am happy that Anna was able to continue and expand on what we initiated so long ago. Europe, specially Spain, has always been a more agreeable platform from which to engage Cuba. Let’s hope that under this new administration we are able to engage Cuba in new ways.
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.
barbacoa: technical definition
It was explained to me that for any inserted level to be called a barbacoa it had to be built out of wood. When an interior level is built out of concrete it is called a placa. There is more to this than a simple play in nomenclature. Barbacoas imply self-build. Self-building with wood does not require any technical assistant, “anyone can do that,” I was told. It was also easier to find wood, it was available, cheap of free. People always had some “spare” part you could trade for. Now its is very difficult to find anything, even wood. (On a very side not, as I type this the security guard in the hotel is on the phone with another security guard who is calling about two people who have gone to the pool level. He believes that they are tourists but that they are not staying in this hotel. He is calling to check on them. He was just informed that they are leaving the pool area and going to the lobby.) Placa requires technical assistant, “you need someone to do it for you. You can’t do it yourself.” There is more to the battle between the barbacoa and the placa. The government is eliminating all barbacoas. In fact the building of barbacoas is prohibited. They are substituting them for placas. This of course gives people a sense of greater stability and security; nevertheless it loads the original structure with a heavier load, which in many cases is a real concern due to the conditions of the existing buildings. This policy also has cut down on self-improvement, on peoples authorship of their own living spaces.
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.
Urbanists International
U.S. Architect Organizes Effort to Save Cuban Capital From Overdevelopment
washingtonpost.com
Preservationists Fear for Havana’s Future
U.S. Architect Organizes Effort to Save Cuban Capital From Overdevelopment
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, February 23, 2003; Page A31
MEXICO CITY, Feb. 22 — It is an image Jeffrey Horowitz cannot bear: Havana,
the crumbling colonial gem of the Caribbean, transformed into a generic city
of shopping malls, glass office buildings and cul-de-sacs sprouting with as
much beauty and planning as garden weeds.
So Horowitz, a leading U.S. architect and urban planner, is in Havana this
weekend with a group of high-level colleagues to confer with their Cuban
counterparts about the future of a city whose architecture and development
have been essentially frozen in time since Fidel Castro took over in 1959.
“This is an innocent, lost city that is going to be raped by the world,”
said Horowitz, noting that cash-flush developers from around the world are
lining up to get into Cuba the moment the four-decade-old U.S. economic
embargo is lifted.
“Everyone says, ‘You’ve got to go now before it’s ruined,’ ” said Horowitz,
an architectural designer from California and founder of the Harvard
Architecture Review. “What people are all assuming is that this city is
going to turn into a nightmare, that it is going to be overrun and look like
every other identity-less island resort with a cute historic tourist
district on the side. This doesn’t have to happen.”
Horowitz’s group, Urbanists International, which was formed in September, is
launching its efforts in Havana at a time of increasingly polarized debate
in Washington about Cuba. A growing number of senators and representatives
from both parties support lifting the embargo and the travel restrictions on
U.S. citizens.
Agricultural interests are also demanding more freedom to sell to Cuba.
Under an easing of the embargo passed by President Bill Clinton in 2000,
U.S. businesses sold Cuba about $189 million worth of food last year –
making the United States Cuba’s 10th-largest trading partner, according to
Cuban officials.
But the Bush administration has tightened the embargo and travel ban, and
this month stripped language from the federal budget that would have
weakened them.
Horowitz said his group assumes that the embargo will be lifted sooner or
later. When that happens, he said Havana would be like a city “emerging from
a time capsule” that needs to be prepared for the investment and people who
will flow in. He said, for example, that the island’s 2 million tourists
annually — 200,000 of them Americans, visiting legally or illegally –
could eventually increase five or six times.
Cuban officials have already laid much groundwork, investing millions of
dollars in recent years on preservation and restoration efforts, mainly in
Old Havana, the city’s colonial-era heart. Several important squares,
notably the elegant Plaza Vieja, have been meticulously restored with
tourist revenues pumped into preservation efforts. Buildings, cobblestones
and fountains there glimmer in the tropical sun as monuments to a
cash-strapped government’s investment in historic preservation.
But the effort is incomplete. A block from the restored tourist areas,
families live in crumbling shells of once-grand buildings. Along the
seafront boulevard known as the Malecon, a few restored facades stand
alongside a sad row of derelict buildings with no windows and falling-down
walls. All over the city, gems of architecture, from the classic Spanish
colonial homes to Miami-style hipster hotels built by mobsters like Meyer
Lansky, sit in desperate need of salvation.
Horowitz said the eventual lifting of the embargo would offer Cuba great
opportunities to save those buildings. But he said it would also create an
enormous temptation for the government to grab millions dangled by
developers who have little concern for preserving Havana’s character. He
said Cuban officials need to develop a broad master plan to accommodate
growth.
“This isn’t some academic exercise,” Horowitz said. “This is one of those
rare moments in time when we really can make a difference. People are sick
of seeing their cities destroyed, and this is an opportunity to show people
that there is a different way of doing things.”
Many high-ranking Cuban officials are participating in this weekend’s visit,
including Eusebio Leal, who has overseen the restoration efforts in Old
Havana. The Cuban government is scheduled to co-host a larger conference
with the U.S. group in June.
Horowitz said Urbanists International is nonprofit and nonpolitical and will
visit Cuba on an informational exchange that will violate no U.S. laws. He
said the group would not actually help draw a master plan or offer any paid
services, but would simply offer ideas.
The 32-member delegation includes two members of Congress, California
Democrats Rep. Sam Farr and Rep. Barbara T. Lee, as well as former Baltimore
mayor Kurt Schmoke and the planning directors of Los Angeles and Portland,
Ore. It also includes some of America’s top architects and designers,
including Fred Koetter of the Yale School of Architecture and Harrison S.
Fraker Jr. of the University of California at Berkeley.
Those officials and architects will describe their experiences with urban
planning in cities as diverse as Knoxville, Tenn., Beijing, Beirut and Ho
Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
James R. Jones, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico who is not associated
with Urbanists International, said the group’s trip to Cuba illustrated the
growing interest in Cuba among a “broad scope” of Americans. Jones chaired a
policy group, composed of Republicans, Democrats and members of the
Cuban-American community from Miami, which issued a report last month
calling for normalized relations with Cuba.
“There have been changes in attitude in the United States and Cuba,” Jones
said, “and this group senses that.”