If you thought that Havana’s ruins were the city’s international symbol now and forever, think again. A lot is in store for its waterfront, its thoroughfares and its facades: New uses, new transportation networks, a sustainable bay side, redesigned parks and walking and biking-friendly areas. Barcelona of the Caribbean? Three Cuban architects and urban planners gathered at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design last month and discussed some of the ideas at work. Linda Rodríguez was there and got the details for us.
Will luxury apartments, shops, and “marinas crowded with yachts” soon come to the bay of Havana? What will U.S. hotel chains in the “race for Cuba’s beach front” leave in their wake?
The latest cascade of Cuba news in the U.S., post-December 17 announcement of the restoration of diplomatic relations, presented both scenarios without definite timelines for either. Yet, economic development and foreign investment will undoubtedly be a part of the future of Cuba, and in particular of its urban centers. What planning ideas may shape Havana’s redevelopment? On September 26, 2015, three Cuban architects and urban planners addressed these questions at a presentation, entitled “The Challenge of Change: The Future of Havana,” at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
Patricia Rodríguez, director of the Oficina del Plan Maestro of the City of Havana’s Historian’s Office (OHCH), provided an overview of the preservation “miracle” of the colonial quarter, Habana Vieja. She outlined some of the planning decisions that have guided her office’s work in Old Havana, along with five lessons. UNESCO designated Old Havana (essentially the former colonial walled city) and its system of fortifications as a world heritage site in 1982. In 1993, the Cuban government, via special decree, bestowed upon the Historian’s Office the “exceptional authority” to manage the planning and conservation of the historic core via its status as a separate municipal entity that reports directly to the Cuban Council of State. According to Rodríguez, the special institutionalization of the Historian’s Office has allowed for a “comprehensive development” that prioritizes economic, social, and cultural aspects of planning. As a second lesson, she highlighted the role of culture, in particular, as the guiding axis of her office’s restoration efforts. The first focus was on intervening in key historic areas like the system of plazas and connecting streets, in addition to the outside borders of the colonial core. Culture, for Rodríguez, generates a sense of identity and belonging, which also attracts visitors who spend money in restaurants and bars in the area. Through its legal status, the Historian’s Office manages this local and diversified economy (a third lesson) and guarantees that these funds are reinvested into further conservation and rehabilitation efforts. Castillo’s fourth and fifth lessons related to the role of private individuals and the idea of a sustainable future. The Historian’s Office incorporates citizens into its planning efforts, and the Office works to ensure (to the extent possible) that they continue to live in Habana Vieja. Lastly, the Historian’s Office projects all of its work on a sustainable scale as it continues to tackle issues related to infrastructure (particularly water and sewage) and the environment. Can these five lessons — good governance, cultural focus, diverse economy, centering citizens, and sustainable growth — be applied to other areas of Havana? The need for answers is urgent especially as the delicate state of the Cuban economy, and need for foreign investment, portends the arrival of dramatic plans that may impact the city and its residents.
Rodriguez also hinted at future work of the Historian’s Office that will focus on the bay of Havana. The push to rehabilitate the bay intensified after the diversion of its industrial traffic to the newly constructed port of Mariel, about 30 miles west of Havana. The bay area of Havana already existed as a protected “buffer zone” to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Old Havana and its fortifications. However, last year the Cuban government designated the area a special “zone of protection of the Cuban Republic,” requiring that the National Monuments Commission approve any new construction or rehabilitation. Both designations would ostensibly slow, or at least temper, dramatic development in the area — of the sort conjured up by recent headlines. The Historian’s Office, said Rodríguez, will apply its culturally focused strategy to the bay as it has done in the rest of its work. By focusing on patrimonial value, they plan to highlight the industrial history of the area, its subaquatic archaeology, and its religious importance (in the shrine of the Virgin of Regla, also identified by Santería practitioners as Yemayá). They are preparing instruments to evaluate all of these facets of cultural heritage — one of which will be the publication of an Atlas de Patrimonio Cultural of the bay area.
In turn, Orlando Inclán and Claudia Castillo – both architects at OHCH and also founders of an informal urban working group called Habana Regeneración that rallies young architects to research and rethink the city’s future – identified the issues that now hinder a sustainable and vibrant future for the city as a whole. In their presentation, they noted that most of Havana’s housing stock predates the 1959 Revolution. The Urban Reform Law of 1960 legally made residents owners of the homes the lived in and gave them the opportunity to swap homes (and, more recently, sell them). Yet, the closing of the Colegio de Arquitectos in 1967, and the centralization of architectural design within the Ministerio de la Construcción, stifled the building of new homes. The doubling of the population from 1964 to 2014, coupled with the general lack of new housing, created overcrowding, as a habaneros often live in cramped quarters with multiple generations under the same roof. Opportunities for the creation of new housing stock remain unclear, particularly as architects still cannot legally pursue their professions outside of state firms. Recent regulations that authorize self-employment do not include architects (or other professions like doctors of lawyers), yet they have found creative ways to operate. Finally, a comprehensive plan for the city of Havana does not currently exist, but individual visions have recently come to the fore. In spite of these challenges, the historic core of the city shines as a kind of a preservation and planning “miracle.”
At Harvard, Castillo and Inclán, proposed to make the bay of Havana the central axis of the city, which would centralize the historic city as few cities have, and dramatically shift the orientation away from its Westward tendencies. The proposal would require better transportation across the bay between Old Havana and communities like Regla and Guanabacoa. The presenters also mentioned the importance of understanding Havana in different scales. For instance, why not think of Havana as the center of a chain of connected cities that fan out into the provinces of Artemisa and Mayabeque? If they were connected via reliable transportation, citizens might choose to live there, thereby reducing the housing strain in Havana. Planning for a “Great Havana” could also allow for an emphasis on green areas around the city – perhaps providing a greenbelt to contain urban sprawl.
Inclán and Castillo insisted on the need to learn from the past in order to plan a better future for the city. The economic crisis of the “Special Period,” spurred on by the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent loss of Soviet subsidies, led to creative recycling of both space and objects. This “accidental sustainability,” as they call it, now ironically appears similar to contemporary international propositions of ecological urbanism. Cubans became adept at reusing household objects, recycling domestic spaces, and appropriating the public space of the street. Items destined for the trash elsewhere became new objects in Cuba. The recycling of domestic spaces, and lack of available housing, often means that members from different socio-economic strata live in the same buildings — another important idea for Castillo and Inclán. However, the recent opening of the real estate market threatens to concentrate wealthier residents, or foreigners who buy properties through Cubans, in specific areas of the city — more visible signs of already existing patterns of social inequalities. A more robust transportation system is therefore key to the future. Cubans have learned to rely heavily on collective modes of transportation, like the collective taxis and (often overcrowded) buses. In addition, during the height of the “Special Period,” they used bicycles intensively as bus transport almost came to a complete stop. For these architects, these adaptive uses should also be emphasized as part of planning for the future to mitigate the probable increase of private automobile use.
All the presenters, Patricia Rodríguez, Claudia Castillo, and Orlando Inclán agreed that Havana should exist for its own residents first, and for visitors, second. How can Havana retain its character and architectural patrimony (that extends far beyond Old Havana) and simultaneously integrate development soon to be fueled by foreign investment? Mario Coyula, the esteemed Cuban architect, asked these same questions in his essay “Havana Forever, Forever Havana” as he wondered how local citizens could define urban priorities. Rodríguez clearly showed that private citizens are already changing the face of the city. To date, they have restored a noticeable number of the homes within the historic quarter. The Historian’s Office, per Patricia, wants to better understand how to collaborate with these individuals. Such a partnership could be key, along with the other compelling lessons and ideas discussed by the presenters, in helping habaneros shape the future of their city.
Featured Image: Slide showing the doubling of the population of Havana with unchanged city
boundaries (copyright: Habana Regeneración).