Havana Modern

A visual and scholarly deep dive into Cuba’s modernist gems of the postwar era

In the decades after World War II, from just prior to the revolution and into the mid-1980s, modernist architecture blossomed in Cuba, attracting both native talent and leading international architects from Europe. Havana Modern examines Cuban modernism’s highlights with a wealth of archival materials, photos and new scholarship. Edited by Rubén Gallo--author of Mexican Modernity (2005), Freud’s Mexico (2010) and Proust’s Latin Americans (2014)--the volume is arranged in 10 chapters authored by current and former Princeton faculty members and graduate students. These essays, which arose from seminars organized by Gallo and historian Beatriz Colomina, examine Max Abramovitz’s American Embassy; Richard Neutra’s De Schultess House; Martín Domínguez Esteban, Miguel Gastón and Emilio del Junco’s Radiocentro; Mies van Der Rohe’s office building for Ron Barcardí S.A.; Vittorio Garatti, Roberto Gottardi and Ricardo Porro’s National Art Schools for Havana; Mario Girona’s Coppelia Ice-cream parlor and park; Vittorio Garatti, Hugo D’Acosta and Sergio Baroni’s Cuban Pavilion at Expo 67; Antonio Quintana and Alberto Rodriguez’s ＂Edificio Experimental＂; and Aleksandr Grigorievich Rochegov’s USRR Embassy. Havana Modern draws on history, politics, culture, literature and film to elucidate this outstandingly rich era in architectural history.