Sunday, March 13, 2016

Cuba before the Rolling Stones … oh! and a president - part six


For this final post here’s something I’ve saved.


Early one morning, I come across a tropical gem.


The home’s ornamentation seems to be derived from the deco fountain motif popular in the 1930s.


Railings are satisfyingly curved …


… and black tiles - the stripes are another eye-catching effect -  glint when caught in the sun.


Even the columns are not circles, but ovals. 


Who commissioned and designed this? What was the home like - its interior probably decorated in then ultra modern style - when first built? Who lived here and what happened to them after the revolution? 

Children, passing on their way to school, take no notice. Why should they? The house is from another time, just as, one day, the Castros and bitter Cuban-Americans and first-person memories of 1959 and 1962 will be from another time. And then things will be different. For Cubans I hope different and better.

Oh! The house is at the corner of Miramar’s Avenida 3ra & Calle 30. If you’re walking by, check and let me know if it’s for sale.

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Cuba before the Rolling Stones … oh! and a president - part five



When first in Havana I stayed in the 1875 Hotel Inglaterra, the building with the flag.


I walked into my room, admired the stained glass, opened the doors …


… and had Old Havana’s Parque Central at my feet.

It didn’t matter that the bathroom was, to be kind, eccentric. The atmosphere was redolent, for this young reporter was where, decades before, newspaper correspondents had put up while covering the Spanish-American War. 

(March 19: It's announced that the Inglaterra is to become one of three Havana hotels to be operated by an American company. This will be the first time since 1959 that an American firm will have direct involvement in a  Cuban tourism enterprise.)


Another time, I booked into the Plaza, opened in 1909. My room again had stained glass …


… and looked into an inner courtyard. 


Opposite the Plaza, I took this picture of the 1930 Edificio Emilio Bacardi, one of Havana’s deco glories and city's tallest structure when completed. 

I’ve learned from Cuban architecture …


In the 1940s, Batista ordered the construction of a massive TB sanatorium in the mountains east of Havana.

The style, a deco variant sometimes termed ‘modern monumental’ was favoured by the era’s dictators. 



Nowadays, the structure, in a small town called Topes de Collantes, is a hotel with somewhat mixed reviews.


When privileged Eastern Bloc citizens were allowed to travel here, accommodation had to be built. 




Cienfuegos’ 1976 Hotel Pasacaballo, where I stay this time, features a boxy-blocky, Soviet-influenced, resort design. Tropical brutalism?

By the way, many of those Eastern Bloc tourists defected on their way to - or flying back from - Cuba, when planes refuelled at Gander in Newfoundland. 


Although I enjoy colonial and derivative architecture (despite all the columns, the Havana house above isn’t overly large) ...



… what I really like is modernism and into the Fifties. Above is Old Havana's 1951 Edificio de la Marina de Guerra (Navy Building), described as 'nautical deco'. Note the stylish crows nests (?) at the top.



Miramar, the once - and becoming again - posh neighbourhood in western Havana, is crammed with admirable residential design. 


Look at the curves and postwar metalwork swirls …



… or at these wonderful seaside apartments and superb ornamentation. 





Curvy balconies, portholes and circles within circles. Even a normally tasteless flamingo takes on a certain appeal. 


Cuba’s long been known for art. I might complain about boxy, blocky hotels, but enjoy this cheerful stained glass in a resort near Trinidad.


On Havana’s outskirts is ‘Fusterlandia’, named for its creator José Fuster, an extraordinary Gaudi …


… and Picasso influenced oeuvre


… although it’s not easy to make Hugo Chavez look appealing. 

Where, other than touristy Old Havana, the world’s copyrighted brands have not arrived, there is art, too, in unstandardized signs. A hand-painted Cuban sign is unique.




We forget how drearily similar - and thus uninteresting - is mass-produced Western advertising.


I imagine this little bar as a refuge for neighbourhood men furtively seeking refreshment away from censorious womenfolk. 



Click on the picture. No Century 21, RE/MAX or Coldwell Banker and their ubiquitous signs here. 


A ‘death or country’ sign for the infamous CDRs (Committees for the Defence of the Revolution), which take busybody neighbourhood watch to a political extreme, may serve as a fading warning …


… but the Cienfuegos Propaganda Provincial printer looks quite jolly (if even older than Cuban cars).


Cuba makes one grateful for SD cards.




Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Cuba before the Rolling Stones … oh! and a president - part four



If Havana’s tourist ground zero, there’s always the countryside. Some rural areas have been popular for years, but usually have sufficient space to spread out.

Scenery is wonderful and people welcoming. 


Unlike many Caribbean islands where you just know locals detest tourists, Cubans, even when not a buck’s to be earned, frequently make eye contact, smile and say ‘Hola!’



The Vinales Valley with its curious limestone mojotes is my base for a few days.






This old boy's gold for even the most incompetent photographer.

To the east is the province of Sancti Spiritus and colonial Trinidad.




The man in white is a follower of Santeria, mixing Christianity and beliefs brought from Africa by slaves. Some estimates suggest, despite years of communism, well over half of all Cubans practise some form of Santeria. 


In a farmer’s home, a faded family photo of a child ‘with Che’.


An afternoon of chess.



A young woman poses for photos marking her Quinceañera, the fifteenth birthday transition to adulthood.






It’s easy to say that Cubans - despite so much adversity - have a dignity, a sense of national self-confidence sometimes lacking in other Third World countries. Or, toeing the political line, do most simply quietly lead lives of resigned frustration? I don’t know; perhaps all those traits and emotions. 

An American president’s arrival is significant, but certainly doesn’t herald imminent regime collapse. My uneducated guess is that economic change comes first - as it already is - and political change will take far longer.

A Cuban-American was upset on learning I was going to Cuba. Okay, I won’t go (back) to Cuba, if you (in a general sense) don’t go to China. And if you stop trading with China. And if you block hundreds of thousands of Chinese students from studying in the West. And, by the way, don’t go to Vietnam, where thousands of Americans were killed. And certainly don’t get on a cruise to St. Petersburg, since Russia’s becoming  ever more repressive and aggressive. And …