Decaying Splendour

Cuba's architectural legacy spans five centuries of different architectural styles, from Spanish colonial to baroque, from art nouveau to modern. In the city, beaux art clubs and casinos stand side by side with art deco skyscrapers and cinemas; in the suburbs, Spanish style villas and modernist houses share the same street. The once colourful frescoes are faded, the paint is peeling, but the beauty and elegance of this cosmopolitan city is timeless.

In 1511 Diego Velasquez landed on Guantanamo Bay and set about establishing a command centre in the new colony. His house in Santiago is the oldest in the Americas. The artisans he brought from Spain had learnt to paint frescoes from Italy, and Muslim influence in 16^th century south of Spain was very much in evidence in the architectural style. Fervent Catholicism was expressed in the construction of numerous cathedrals, churches, and convents, where French gothic spires mixed with lavish details of baroque.

Terracotta and glazed tiles were used to decorate exteriors and floors, Moorish arches adopted, and locally available materials like dark timber were added to create a tropical feel. The mujédar carpenters, skilled boat makers, built the high ceilings with close fitting wood pieces and mahogany beams to resemble the upturned hull of a boat. This provided some respite from the heat.

The Spanish style villas were suited to the tropical weather; the arches allowed plenty of ventilation and inner courtyards with abundant foliage created a tropical sanctum. The Cuban ‘flavour’ essentially combined the Moorish and European, absorbing various styles but adapting them to suit their own materials and colours. In colonial Havana, the predominant colours are white, pale yellow and the azure ‘Havana blue’. The inspiration came from the colours they saw all around them white (sand), pale yellow, (sun) azure blue (sea). In the graceful mansions in the Vedado district of Havana, the fine lines of neoclassical mix effortlessly with tropical flair, as stained glass windows soften the glare of the sun and add a Cuban aesthetic. The pastel coloured art deco tiles perform the dual function of a bold, graphic design element, and give a cooling effect.

During the art nouveau period of the 1890s, Cuba was the richest Spanish colony. An offshoot of the movement in Paris saw countless homes and buildings combine the daintiness of art nouveau, with Cuban elements like mahogany banisters or balcony details in wrought iron. High ceilings and whitewashed walls remained a popular feature.

During the first decades of 20^th century, Cuba was under the influence of US money and fashions, and Hollywood stars were regulars at Havana’s many hotels. The Hotel Nacional is an example of mixing it up Cuba style as art deco, neoclassic and neocolonial styles come together effortlessly and the 19^th century Hotel Inglaterre combines a neoclassical exterior with Moorish interior. The Gran Teatro follows the same example, with art nouveau and baroque styles. The HQ is long gone, but the Bacardi palace with its streamlined, solid art deco lines is still a recognizable building in Havana.

The postmodernism of 50s saw the dawn of socialism in Cuba. The trend is seen in the shamelessly utilitarian apartment and office blocks of Havana, built by Castro's microbrigades to combat housing shortages.

Varadero's white sand and coral reef, and more close proximity to US made it the ideal location for a holiday destination. Before the present day tourist hotels and resorts, it was a summer escape in the 20s for US magnates, who built old homes and bought up large tracts of land. Some seaside homes still remain with wood siding and wraparound verandahs, where a couple of rocking chairs await those looking for respite from the heat, and while away long afternoons.

In Cuba's outlying towns and rural areas, you catch glimpses of little pieces of history here and there in architectural features. Peasant dwellings are still modeled after earliest Indian structures with thatched roofs; Camagüey was razed in the 1660s by the freebooter Captain Henry Morgan (yep the guy on the rum bottle) and was later reconstructed as a complex maze of streets to thwart future attacks. The cobblestones used to pave Trinidad streets were originally ballast from Spanish ships, that left laden with sugar.

Ravages of the elements and decades of neglect have left these architectural treasures in a sad state of disrepair. Fortunately, there are some aggressive restoration projects underway largely funded by the Spanish government. Some Cubans express concerns over this restoration by development, turning old buildings into museums, but they are preserved for several more generations of Cubans to enjoy.

Brief Timeline-Architectural styles in Cuba

1525 Spanish colonial

1600 Baroque

1650 Rocco1750 Neoclassical

1812 Moorish revival

1865 Beaux arts

1890 Art nouveau / Colonial revival

1915 Modernism

1925 Art deco

1930 Streamline moderne

1950 Post modernism

Snapshot Havana

The humidity hits you as you step out from the rarified, air-conditioned confines of the plane, the heat dances off the tarmac, playing tricks on your eyes. But by the time you make your way past the tense sea of olive green uniforms in the lobby, you’re already in a blissed out ‘island state of mind’.

In 1492 when Columbus stumbled onto Cuban shores looking for India’s fabled treasures, he called it the most beautiful land he’d ever seen. Five hundred years later, life here is still a party and the world's invited. Beaches, resorts and hotels are teeming with new age saviours; western tourists with American greenbacks in their Tommy Bahama shirts, who will pay any price for a piece of Cubanidad-Cuba is for sale. The need for tourist dollars has reduced Cuba to just another Caribbean island, a tempting yet tired cliché of sun, sand and surf, but my experience begins right here in Havana as a java jolt of countless colors, sights, and sounds awakes me from a gray black winter slumber.

Founded in 1514, San Cristobal de la Habana was a docking port for Cortes’ ships returning to Spain with Montezuma’s gold. (He found no gold in Cuba, but when Columbus planted some sugarcane seedlings, he had no idea of the far-reaching effects. Sugar remains inextricably linked to Cuba’s destiny—a gift from a fickle mythical god that became a curse as centuries of slavery and colonization followed.) Today the fortified El Morro castle, one of Havana’s oldest landmarks, is a grim reminder of pirate sackings. Along the Malecón, images become anecdotal snippets in your mind: waves crash playfully over the seawall, drenching promenading Havanans, friends sit down to an impromptu game of dominoes, two guys carry a 1950s candy pink fridge down a narrow street and an amigo stops to say hi, and lend a hand; a couple of kids with defiant body art check out what’s hot in the music world on their radios.

Havana means nights drinking crisp mojitos at Hemingway's favourite bar Bodeguita, waiting for a literary revelation, and watching the shimmering Tropicana showgirls dance splendorous whirlwinds. Memories of a rat race life are insignificant, distant, dissipating into the ethers with the soothing smoke from an exquisite Cohiba. Summer evenings are long, spent under a vast, free sky of the bluest blue, listening to the warm sea caress the beach in hushed whispers, right before sleep comes easily, abundant, in a purple cloak. You agree with Columbus.

Cuba’s warm, passionate people amply express their spirit in sensual song lyrics, and their traditional son music. This is a country with a song in its body, the most dance prone society in the world. At a local El Rapido restaurant, revelers spill out on the streets, dancing to the music coming from within; I have to get into the rhythm of this place to feel its soul. People are friendly and share their worldviews or talk baseball over a cup of strong coffee or a stiff shot of rum. They are optimistic and resilient, feet firmly rooted in the past, and eyes toward a hopeful future.

The impressive Hotel Nacional overlooking the Malecón pays iconic homage to Havana’s colourful past when Americans just went south to drink and Prohibition era high rollers with big cars and bigger lifestyles frolicked here on the beaches. For Hollywood royalty, hippie child brides of statesmen, pioneering gangsters of dubious distinction, and suicidal novelists of genius, this was the mecca.

¡Hasta la Victoria siempre! (Ever onwards towards Victory)

¡Venceremos! (We shall overcome)

¡Socialismo ou muerte! (Socialism or death)

Revolution for Cubans is more than an intense looking guy on a t-shirt. The incendiary nationalist graffiti on Havana’s streets tries to give hope to a people who have lived through forty years of trying economic conditions. Combined with the breakup of USSR and the trade embargo, these are difficult times, making tourism an economic necessity. The pace of life is leisurely but waiting is a way of life here. People wait at food stores, for the bus, to pay the bill. Progress is like the sputtering 70s Ladas. The promise of the final victory is now wearing old, but they carry on, with hope towards the elusive Victoria.

Images of Che abound all over Cuba, most prominently the steel and glass sculpture on the façade of the Ministry of the Interior building. It is based on one of the most iconic images of our time that captured the revolutionary zeitgeist. Alberto Korda, a photographer for LA Revolucion took the picture in 1960. Years later, the Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli stopped in Cuba on the way back from Bolivia, where he had heard that Che's capture and execution was imminent. Korda refused payment for the print since his visitor was ‘a friend of the Revolution’. Within days Che had achieved instant mythical stature in death; millions of reproductions later all over the world, Korda never received as cent as he was ‘not averse to its reproduction…to propagate…the cause of social justice throughout the world’. Castro had a different take on the issue, describing the protection of intellectual property as imperialistic ‘bullshit’.

The world's eyes are once again on Cuba. Will a post Castro Cuba remain communist? Is Cuba at the brink of another revolution? This time the Cubans are poised to determine their own future.

Fast Facts: Area: 110,860km; Pop: 11,382,820; GDP (PPP): $3900; Literacy: 97%; Main crops, sugar, tobacco, citrus; Main cities: Havana, Santiago, Camagüey, Holguin; Currency: peso, convertible peso: Religion: (85% Roman Catholicism); Govt: socialist republic. (source: CIA World Factbook)

An old poem I found in a long forgotten file

Phone Manners

Called you

after a lapse of several months

Typically, you say this time I have

disrupted your viewing

of a Val Kilmer movie

(The Saint? The Ghost and the Darkness?)

or does it matter?

Rudely reminded

Why

I'd stopped calling

In the first place