Havana's former grandeur decays and crumbles
By Anthony Boadle 1 hour, 13 minutes ago
HAVANA (Reuters) - Almost half a century of communist rule has saved
Havana's eclectic architecture from the urban developer's bulldozer, but
a lack of repair has taken a ruinous toll on its neo-Baroque and Art
Deco gems.
Dozens of colonial buildings and beautiful squares in Old Havana have
been restored since the U.N. cultural agency
UNESCO designated it a world heritage site in 1982. But the rest of the
city of 2.2 million people is falling into decay.
"The situation has become critical. There are areas of the city where
buildings collapse every few days. The overcrowding is tremendous," said
leading Cuban architect Mario Coyula, who fears Havana's architectural
beauty is damaged beyond repair.
In teeming, pot-holed Central Havana, poverty coexists with some of the
world's finest examples of neo-Baroque and Art Deco architecture built
before
Fidel Castro came to power in 1959.
It is Cuba's most densely-populated district, with 160,000 people living
in 1.3 square miles of crumbling buildings dating from the 1920s and
1930s, many now lacking basic sanitation.
This is the setting for the ribald fiction of Cuban writer Pedro Juan
Gutierrez, whose best-selling "Dirty Havana Trilogy," which has been
translated into English, recreates an underworld peopled by pimps,
prostitutes and black-market hustlers.
Foreign visitors stroll through spectacularly dilapidated streets
snapping photographs of the city's rotting grandeur and vintage American
cars caught in a bizarre time warp.
Amidst the squalor and rubble, tourists brave darkly-lit streets to
climb to the city's best-known private restaurant, La Guarida, perched
on the top floor of a palatial town-house built by a sugar baron in 1913.
The building of marble staircases and statues today houses 30 families
who built small two-floor apartments inside formerly high-ceilinged
rooms, called "barbacoas" because of the way a new floor is inserted
like a barbecue grill. A washing line with drying clothes hangs between
elegant columns.
In the restaurant upstairs, where a main course costs the same as an
average monthly wage in Cuba, photographs on the wall recall celebrity
visitors, from Jack Nicholson to the Queen of Spain.
"This building would have collapsed without the restaurant. Its owner
has helped a lot with money for repairs," said Enio Ochoa, a former
naval engineer living on the second floor.
STANDING BY MIRACLE
Experts say renovating Central Havana would be so costly that demolition
is inevitable in many parts. Residents involved in urban planning
believe their district can be saved.
"We have an advanced state of deterioration, but renewal is possible,"
said one official who asked not to be named.
She said 15 percent of the buildings were in very bad shape. "Nobody
knows how they are still standing. It's a miracle they have not fallen
down," she said.
Iraelio Fernandez's building did collapse. He and his wife moved into an
abandoned cinema across the street where he raises chickens and a pig in
a roofed space that once housed a 1,000-seat theater called the Palace.
"We moved here until they build new houses," he said.
Cuba's communist authorities say the nation of 11 million has a deficit
of 400,000 houses and 43 percent of homes need repairs. Many have not
seen a coat of paint in decades.
The government is trying to tackle the problem. In 2006 it injected
funds into an accelerated construction program that saw 110,000 units
built, almost treble the previous year, but still 40,000 below target.
Architect Coyula said Castro's government, born of a guerrilla
revolution that ousted a right-wing dictatorship in 1959, put housing on
the back-burner as it gave priority to health and education programs,
and industrial development.
The housing crisis worsened when Soviet communism collapsed and sent
Cuba into an economic tail-spin in the early 1990s.
Today it is not rare to find three generations of a family sharing the
same roof.
Central Havana was the site of the only riots against Castro's rule in
the hot summer of 1994 when some 35,000 people took to the sea in rafts
is a desperate exodus to the United States.
The Cuban government blames the "blockade" -- as it refers to U.S.
sanctions -- for the country's economic shortcomings.
But some Cubans say the government has only itself to blame for the
urban decay of Havana.
"It's late to try to save the rich diversity of this architecture," said
Cuban writer Antonio Jose Ponte. "It's not far-fetched to think that
Central Havana will disappear."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070323/wl_nm/cuba_havana_dc_2
By Anthony Boadle 1 hour, 13 minutes ago
HAVANA (Reuters) - Almost half a century of communist rule has saved
Havana's eclectic architecture from the urban developer's bulldozer, but
a lack of repair has taken a ruinous toll on its neo-Baroque and Art
Deco gems.
Dozens of colonial buildings and beautiful squares in Old Havana have
been restored since the U.N. cultural agency
UNESCO designated it a world heritage site in 1982. But the rest of the
city of 2.2 million people is falling into decay.
"The situation has become critical. There are areas of the city where
buildings collapse every few days. The overcrowding is tremendous," said
leading Cuban architect Mario Coyula, who fears Havana's architectural
beauty is damaged beyond repair.
In teeming, pot-holed Central Havana, poverty coexists with some of the
world's finest examples of neo-Baroque and Art Deco architecture built
before
Fidel Castro came to power in 1959.
It is Cuba's most densely-populated district, with 160,000 people living
in 1.3 square miles of crumbling buildings dating from the 1920s and
1930s, many now lacking basic sanitation.
This is the setting for the ribald fiction of Cuban writer Pedro Juan
Gutierrez, whose best-selling "Dirty Havana Trilogy," which has been
translated into English, recreates an underworld peopled by pimps,
prostitutes and black-market hustlers.
Foreign visitors stroll through spectacularly dilapidated streets
snapping photographs of the city's rotting grandeur and vintage American
cars caught in a bizarre time warp.
Amidst the squalor and rubble, tourists brave darkly-lit streets to
climb to the city's best-known private restaurant, La Guarida, perched
on the top floor of a palatial town-house built by a sugar baron in 1913.
The building of marble staircases and statues today houses 30 families
who built small two-floor apartments inside formerly high-ceilinged
rooms, called "barbacoas" because of the way a new floor is inserted
like a barbecue grill. A washing line with drying clothes hangs between
elegant columns.
In the restaurant upstairs, where a main course costs the same as an
average monthly wage in Cuba, photographs on the wall recall celebrity
visitors, from Jack Nicholson to the Queen of Spain.
"This building would have collapsed without the restaurant. Its owner
has helped a lot with money for repairs," said Enio Ochoa, a former
naval engineer living on the second floor.
STANDING BY MIRACLE
Experts say renovating Central Havana would be so costly that demolition
is inevitable in many parts. Residents involved in urban planning
believe their district can be saved.
"We have an advanced state of deterioration, but renewal is possible,"
said one official who asked not to be named.
She said 15 percent of the buildings were in very bad shape. "Nobody
knows how they are still standing. It's a miracle they have not fallen
down," she said.
Iraelio Fernandez's building did collapse. He and his wife moved into an
abandoned cinema across the street where he raises chickens and a pig in
a roofed space that once housed a 1,000-seat theater called the Palace.
"We moved here until they build new houses," he said.
Cuba's communist authorities say the nation of 11 million has a deficit
of 400,000 houses and 43 percent of homes need repairs. Many have not
seen a coat of paint in decades.
The government is trying to tackle the problem. In 2006 it injected
funds into an accelerated construction program that saw 110,000 units
built, almost treble the previous year, but still 40,000 below target.
Architect Coyula said Castro's government, born of a guerrilla
revolution that ousted a right-wing dictatorship in 1959, put housing on
the back-burner as it gave priority to health and education programs,
and industrial development.
The housing crisis worsened when Soviet communism collapsed and sent
Cuba into an economic tail-spin in the early 1990s.
Today it is not rare to find three generations of a family sharing the
same roof.
Central Havana was the site of the only riots against Castro's rule in
the hot summer of 1994 when some 35,000 people took to the sea in rafts
is a desperate exodus to the United States.
The Cuban government blames the "blockade" -- as it refers to U.S.
sanctions -- for the country's economic shortcomings.
But some Cubans say the government has only itself to blame for the
urban decay of Havana.
"It's late to try to save the rich diversity of this architecture," said
Cuban writer Antonio Jose Ponte. "It's not far-fetched to think that
Central Havana will disappear."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070323/wl_nm/cuba_havana_dc_2
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