The Cuba Fieldcourse

Capitolio Building

The Capitolio Building was built on the site of Havana's first railway station and was originally intended to be a presidential palace when work began in 1912. Progress was delay as the economy of Cuba struggled in the 1920s and the Capitolio was finally completed in just three years from 1926 to 1929 at a cost of nearly $20 million. Reportedly the fifth largest building in the world, it was designed by Cuban architects and built by North American construction companies, French landscapers and Italian sculptors. The dome is 62m high and topped with a replica of a 16th century Italian statue of Mercury. Inside, the entryway opens into a large room at the centre of which is the third largest statue in the world at 11m tall. Cuban guidebooks suggest that the influences on the design of the building include St. Paul's Cathedral in London and St. Peter's in Rome (not the Capital Building in Washington DC). The Capitolio was the seat of the Cuban Congress until 1959 and now houses the Cuban Academy of Sciences and the National Library of Science and Technology. Highway distances between Havana and all sites are measured from this site.

• Capitolio Nacional

China Town (Barrio Chino)

Havana's Chinatown comprises a few blocks around Calle Zanja. Although the area is relatively small, the Chinese have had a significant impact on Havana's cultural identity. The first Chinese labourers were brought to Havana in 1847 by a British company and established what would become the largest Chinese community in Latin America as entrepreneurs and immigrants were attracted to Havana.

The first Chinese restaurant opened on Calle Zanja in 1858 and, in time, a number of Chinese theatres would also be established in the area. Chinatown, however, was heavily affected by the nationalisation of private businesses in 1959. After the Revolution, many of the Chinese community left Havana although a number of associations remain trying to protect the traditions of the Cuban-Chinese community.

Today, the Chinese are noted as the ‘third’ major influence on contemporary Cuba's cultural identity (along with the Spanish and African elements).

• China Town
• Sanfancón: orientalism, confucianism and the construction of chineseness in Cuba, 1847-1997

Colon Cemetery

Havana's large cemetery was built in 1868 in a location that was, at that time, far from the edge of the city. It was completed in time for the burials of those killed in the first War of Independence and the victims of Havana's cholera epidemic. Indeed, the first person to be buried in the graveyard was its architect Calixto de la Loira. Today, there are approximately one million people buried here.

The cemetery is laid out in a grid-iron pattern and maps are available at the entrance. If you wander from the main sections of the graveyard, you see some of the most striking evidence of Cuba's different religious cults including Santeria. There are a number of graves that are worth looking at including:

1. Maximo Gomez (built in 1905) - located close to the entrance on the right (there is a bronze face in a circular medallion).
2. Tomb of La Milagrosa where Amelia Goyri is buried (located at corner of Calles 1 and F and marked by a marble statue of woman holding a large cross with a baby in her arms). Amelia died on May 3rd 1901 during the eighth month of her pregnancy. Her baby was buried at her feet but upon exhumation, the child was found in her arms and subsequently this grave has become a focus for the people of Havana who are looking for intercession in a number of personal tragedies.
3. Edwardo Chibás (located on Calle 8 between Calles E and F) was a radio journalist. During the 1940s and early 1950s, he campaigned against political corruption and as a personal protest he committed suicide and died during one of his radio broadcasts in 1951. At his burial, a young Castro made his first public speech.
4. Bacardí family monument (with bats around its railings)
5. There is a bronze plaque (on corner of Calles 23 and 12 - one block from the cemetery entrance) marking the place from which Castro proclaimed the socialist nature of the Cuban Revolution on April 16th 1961.

• Colon Cemetery
• Máximo Gómez Baez
• Speech by Fidel Castro, Havana, Revolucion, Spanish, 17 January 1959

Malecón

The Malecón (meaning seawall) was planned towards the end of the nineteenth century and was intended to protect Havana from the Caribbean weather particularly, from the hurricanes that hit during autumn and winter. It came to fruition in 1901 when Cuba was under American administration and the neighbourhood of Vedado was expanding with the arrival of new wealth. The seawall was initially built from Old Havana as far as the monument to the US Maine in Vedado but was extended in the 1950s to Mirimar as the suburbs of the city expanded. The Malecón now refers to the whole of the seafront area along Avenida de Maceo. It is an important public space within the city and acts as a meeting place as well as a place of entertainment. The Malecón is currently being restored.

Museum of the Revolution

The Museum of the Revolution is housed in what was once Havana's presidential palace. The Museum is note-worthy, not least, because it is one of very few ‘symbols’ of the revolution. Unlike many other revolutionary governments, buildings have not been seen as important ideological symbols in Cuba and there are few monuments to the revolution itself (look, for example, at Revolution Square). In part, this may be a product of a law prohibiting the erection of monuments or naming of streets to anyone who is living (including Castro - The only monument to Castro in Havana is located on the corner of Calle 12 and 23 in Vedado).

• The Museum of the Revolution

Plaza de Armas

Many of the buildings and features that you see in the square today were developed in the eighteenth century as the square became the bureaucratic and military focus of Havana. The plaza is typical of the squares of Old Havana, except for its lack of a church (although there was originally a Church in the square - built in 1555). The west of the square is dominated by the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales completed in 1791 and the residence of the Spanish governors until independence, then home to the republic's presidents until the Presidential Palace was constructed (now the Museum de la Cuidad) while on the East side of the square is the Castillo de la Real Fuerza, the oldest surviving colonial fortress in the Americas. On the south side of the square are a number of twentieth century buildings, which are now museums but it was here that US embassy was originally located. The buildings surround a garden in the centre of which a statue of Carlos Manuel de Cépedes was constructed in 1955. Cépedes became a hero of the first War of Independence when he launched an uprising at his plantation after he called for the abolition of slavery and set his slaves free.

In the twentieth century, the area around Plaza des Armas became the financial centre of Havana with the National Bank of Cuba, the National Bank of Canada and the National City Bank of New York locating along Calle Obispo and the Loma del Comercio (trading centre) opening for business in Plaza de San Francisco.

• Plaza de Armas
• Carlos Manuel Céspedes

Plaza de la Catedral

Plaza de la Catedral was the last square to be laid out in Old Havana. It is on the site of the Plazuela de la Ciénaga (Little Square of the Swamp) and, despite being subject to flooding at a time when water-borne diseases caused considerable mortality, it was an important recreational location within Old Havana in years gone-by. In the seventeenth century, a royal proclamation prevented building within the square in order to preserve the square for the common good but buildings gradually appeared throughout the eighteenth century and, when the square had been dried out, it became an exclusive location for rich Haberanos to build their homes (see, for example, the restaurant El Patio).

In 1788 work began on The Catedral de San Cristóbal, with its two unequal towers, which now dominates the square. It was built by the Jesuits and once apparently held the remains of Christopher Columbus although historians suggest that the remains were actually those of the explorer's son Diego, Governor of the Indies.

• Plaza de la Catedral

Plaza de San Francisco de Asis

Plaza de San Francisco is the second oldest plaza in the city with a square having existed here before the first Franciscan convent was built here in 1591. Yet the history of this square extends further since it was in the area between Plaza de San Francisco and Plaza des Armas that the indigenous people of Havana are believed to have settled. Given its location, the Plaza has traditionally been the heart of Havana's commercial life, surrounded by many warehouses and the original location of the city's market. The Church within the square has a rich history and today, perhaps the most symbolic aspect of the Church are the twin chairs used by Fidel Castro and the Pope during his visit to Cuba in 1998.

• Plaza de San Francisco de Asis

Plaza Vieja

Plaza Vieja is bounded by Calle Mercaderes, San Ignacio, Brasil and Muralla. It has gone through many different incarnations since it was first laid out in 1584. Originally, the square was intended to be entirely residential in response to the loss of Plaza des Armas to the military but its centre had a number of different functions. The space was used for public entertainment (processions, bullfighting, masked balls etc.), for executions and, in 1772, the first café in Havana was opened in this square. In 1835, the square housed the open market after it was moved from Plaza San Francisco at the request of the monks. The arrival of the market was subject to much protest from the wealthy residents of the square who had chosen to live in the square because of its close proximity to the commercial centre of the city but its suitable distance from the noise of the port.

Many of these colonial mansions remain despite the changing fortunes of the square. When the market was closed, it was replaced first with an amphitheatre and, in 1952, the square was raised to a metre about street level when the authorities built an underground car-park. The car-park was demolished in 1995 by order of Eusebio Leal, the city's historian, when the restoration of Havana got underway. Today, many of the houses in Plaza Vieja have been converted into compact units in order to address the housing problem within Old Havana.

• Plaza Vieja
• Plaza Vieja: A Landmark in Havana's History

Plaza de la Revolucion

This space was selected as the potential civic centre for Havana in the 1930s. Today it is described as ‘the most unappealing, bleakest deserts of space imaginable’ and as a place with no appeal for tourists yet it is one of Havana's most iconic locations. The square was originally planned as a ‘monumental space’ and was intended to be four times its current size but building was delayed and eventually scaled down. Building of the Plaza Cívica (later to be renamed) began in 1952 and continued through much of the 1950s. When Batista fled in 1959, the square had taken shape with a statue of José Martí as its focal point. It was renovated in 1996.

The design of the plaza and the area around it was influenced by CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne), and particularly the work of Le Corbusier. The majority of the buildings that make up Plaza de la Revolución are government ministry buildings. The most famous building in the square is the Ministerio del Interior building (MININT) on the front of which is the famous black metal outline of Che Guevara and his words ‘Hasta la Victoria Siempre’.

The Square is the main location from which Fidel Castro makes speeches to the massive crowds although to some extent the Protestodromo, outside the US Special Interests Section, has become a new focus for protest against anti-imperialism.

• Havana and its Architecture

United States Interests Section

At the point where the Malecón meets Linea, there is a large and heavily policed building which houses the U. S. Interests Section within the Swiss Embassy. Given the continued strain in political relations between Havana and Washington, the US has no embassy in Cuba and is instead served by its Special Interests Section.

• U.S. Interests Section of the Embassy of Switzerland

The University of Havana

The Universidad of Havana (or La Colina) was founded by Dominican monks in 1728 and, like many universities, it remained a religious institution until 1842 when it was secularised. Today, the university has approximately 30000 students (including 2000 overseas students) and employs about 1700 lecturers in social sciences, humanities, natural sciences and maths.

• The University of Havana

USS Maine

This monument was dedicated to the American soldiers that were killed in the explosion of the USS Maine. The monument remains standing despite the increasing tensions between the US and Cuba although the eagle that sat on the top of the monument has been removed because it was seen as too overt a symbol of US imperialism (or, as the Americans suggest it was removed during a tropical storm).

• USS Maine