Collective Patchwork, Patchwork of Collectivity // 22 June 2017 // Aaron Swartjes
BOOK OF
CUBANNESS
INTRODUCTION
The book of Cubanness is an index of things that contribute to the Cuban atmosphere. It is an anthology that includes some of the typologies, architecture, behavior, facts, solutions and other things that make Cuba what it is.. This inventory will be referred to in the other documents. It can be perceived as a dictionary, as a manual or as a snapshot of the Cuban way of life. I think it’s important to keep this inventory in mind while making design decisions. All parts of this inventory are organized alphabetically and referred to with a number. Each typology is explained and may refer to other parts of the inventory by the corresponding number. Everything is linked together, both inside and outside this book. The research presented in this book fits in the Streetscape Territories framework, an international research project that deals with the way buildings and properties are related to streets and how their inhabitants can give meaning to them. Streetscape Territories deals with models of proximity within a street, neighborhood or region and starts from the assumption that urban space, from the domestic scale till the scale of the city, can be understood as a discontinuous collective space, containing different levels of collective use that are defined by multiple physical, cultural or territorial boundaries.
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#01
#02
Arches
AlmacĂŠn
Arches are a recurring element in the colonial architecture in Cuba. Many houses and other buildings make use of it in front porches, inner or outer courtyards (#16) and balconies (#04). They can distinguish a transition point between the inside and outside space. Because of the tropical climate (#41), half-open spaces that bring shade and shelter are very welcome.
An alamcĂŠn is a central warehouse, operated by the Cuban government. Almacenes can be found everywhere around the city. All local shops rely on these almacenes for their basic products. For example, all the local bakeries in Cerro go and get their flower from a nearby almacĂŠn. People who own a private business also rely on this government-owned distribution of basic resources. Recently, more and more almacenes have become abandoned (#21). Aaron Swartjes - Book of Cubanness
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#03
#04
Almendrón
Balcony
Almendrones are the beautiful old cars everyone imagines of when they think of Cuba. The system works slightly different than a normal taxi: almendrones drive along a (more or less) fixed route and pick up anyone along the road who stretches out his arm. After stating your destination, the almendrón-driver will take you with him or consider changing his route a little bit, if it’s convenient. Popular routes are between Calle Linea in Vedado and the Capitolio in Habana Vieja, the famous Malecón avenue or the Calzada del Cerro and Calzada Monte. The rickety almendrones need a lot of repairing (#37), since new cars or spare parts are hard to come by.
In the colonial architecture, outdoor spaces in housing are important. To extend the transition between inside and outside, a balcony is the perfect solution on higher levels. In many buildings along the Calzada del Cerro a balcony can be found above the portal (#35). Where the corridor on the ground floor can be a public space, balconies are a private extension of the private space to the outside. However, due to the huge demand of extra living space, balconies are often transformed into extra living spaces. This DIY-architecture (#19) can be unsafe and may ruin the facade and value of the heritage.
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#06
Barbacoa
Bicitaxi
Barbacoa is a native word for a rustic hut or platform, but also means grill or barbecue. These are mezzanine-like constructions that create an extra floor in a housig unit. This is only possible because of the height (#26) of the ground floor levels. In most cases, constructing a barbacoa results in almost doubling the available floor space. Although a barbacoa may be an interesting or creative solution, they are often badly constructed and may deform the building facade. Besides creating extra floor space, barbacoas provide more privacy.
The bicitaxi is a slow service transport that is mainly found in the tourist areas of Havana. It can easily operate in the smaller streets but it is rather dangerous to go around on the main roads. It is a tourist favorite, but you can see many affluent Cubans on a ride too.
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#05
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#08
#09
Board Games
Cafetería
Cubans love board games. On any given moment of the day you can see groups of friends and families flocking around a game of domino or chess. People like to play this in front of their house, on the sidewalk or somewhere else in the collective space.
All over Cuba, new small businesses are turning up in the streetscape. Since a law passed 2012 that allows private businesses to exist, cafeterias are becoming very popular. They are small places where you can drink a refresco (#36) or eat a hamburger or tortilla. Many cafeterias are organized from someone’s living room through a window or door. On the Calzada del Cerro it is forbidden by law to place any chairs or table in the portal (#35), so that’s why most of the cafeterias have a small wooden shelf attached to the door or window. This is where you can drink your refresco and give back the glass or eat your tortilla out of a plastic basket that they recuperate after you finished.
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#11
Casa Particular
Casa Quinta
A casa particular is a bed and breakfast-type of accomodation that is very popular on the island. Cubans who own a house that is nice and big enough, can rent out one or more rooms to tourists. Both foreigners and Cubans use this system regularly. The casas particulares can be recognised by a sticker on the door or a sign in the yard of the blue logo. Since casa particular owners earn directly from tourists in the CUC currency (#33), they have a very good income compared to other Cubans.
Casas quintas are typical colonial mansion you find all over Cuba. Long ago, when the former city of Havana became too small, the neighborhood of El Cerro was built. Alongside the main route - the Calzada del Cerro - many casas quintas were built. Rich people who had the funds to move out of the crowded city center desired bigger houses surrounded by big gardens. When the city of Havana expanded further throughout history, the rich people moved away again, leaving their casas quintas behind. Many of these houses are in a very bad state and often turned into cuarterias (#17) or were transformed into other types of multi-family housing. By continuing to add incrementally (#28), much of the existing heritage gets spoiled or lost.
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#10
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#12
#13
Caseta
Car-sharing
A caseta is a small room or housing unit that is built on top of an existing building. It is a popular tool in incremental housing (#28) to create extra living space, but some families have their entire house in one standard caseta. It is common to find a family of 6 to live in a caseta of no more than 12 square meters.
Cuba works through a socialist regime: equality and sharing are keywords. This mindset can be seen in many different layers of society, for example in car-sharing. Whenever a car is not full, you are expected to stop at all times when someone needs a ride. This is actually a very sustainable approach to mobility. In the Cuban streetscape you hardly ever see a car with only one or two passengers. When you compare this to a typical Western city, it is exactly the other way around.
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#14
#15
Ciudadela
Colors
A ciudadela is a typical, slum-like Cuban housing type, consisting of different rooms or living spaces in one tenement. Often, toilets and bathrooms are shared in or around a common courtyard (#16). Many additions and constructions are built incrementally (#28). This is dangerous for both the existing and new constructions and mostly happens at the expense of the already scarce open space.
Cubans love colors. The warm and kind Carribean spirit is expressed through the use of vivid colors in the clothes, cars or houses. Many streetscapes look like a flamboyant mix of the spectrum of the rainbow.
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#16
#17
Courtyard
Cuartería
The courtyard is one of the most important parts of the Cuban household. It provides an open space inside the house. It’s a place where Cubans have breakfast or dinner, gather with friends, drink rum or sit in a rocking chair. Courtyards are often decorated with many tropical plants (#41). They are like little paradises inside the dense cityscape. Most importantly, the courtyard contributes to the natural ventilation of the house.
Cuarterías are old mansions, casas quintas or other buildings that are subdivided into new rooms or living units for multiple families. Cuarterías can contain a surprising amount of families. It is very common that an old casa quinta (#11) that was built for a single family is subdivided into housing for at least 10 to 15 families.
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#19
Doorstep
DIY Architecture
The doorstep is more than the entrance to a house: it is a collective space for social interaction. Many people sit on the threshold or have a little wooden chair to place on the doorstep. They do this to look at passersby, talk to neighbors or gather with friends or families. Some people even use their doorstep as a small shop to sell home made coffee or cigars.
Cubans are quite self-reliant. The lack of support, money, goods and tools has trained Cubans to find creative solutions to existing problems. This goes for the skill of being able to repair (#37) almost any item, to the idea that there is no better architect or construction worker than oneself. Common people cannot afford someone to renovate or build their house, so they to it themselves. Closing off patios, appropriating portales (#35), building casetas (#12) and rearranging the layout of the house is everyday business. However, these structural changes do not always happen safely and accidents happen. Many people in El Cerro have an acquaintance or neighbor who has been injured or died in (partial) building collapses.
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#18
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#20
#21
ETECSA-Wi-Fi
Empty Buildings
Internet connection in Cuba is not ordinary. ETECSA is the telecom company and basically rules the Internet market. Wi-Fi connection is only possible in hotels and since very recently in a few public spaces like the baseball stadium or a public square. This explains why you see so many people staring at their screens at certain places in the city. People bring out their laptop and other electrical equipment to these Wi-Fipoints. In ETECSA vending points access cards are being sold for 2CUC each per hour of Internet. They are always immediately sold out, because dealers buy them instantly. They resell them for 3CUC. The sale of these cards only started in 2015 and most Cubans can not afford it, so Internet is not (yet) very accessible. Students at universities do get a free amount of Internet at their campus.
Before the revolution, Havana was the Las Vegas of that time. Many Americans and wealthy people enjoyed the escape to the pleasures of Havana. That was also the time of great cinemas, theaters and other public venues. After the revolution, many of these buildings closed and were never reused. Along the Calzada del Cerro and in many other places you can find the remnants of that time in the form of degenerating empty buildings.
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#23
Fences
Garbage
Inhabitants of Havana feel unsafe. Around the 1990’s during the Special Period, Havana’s crime rate (burglary and robbery) rose slightly. This resulted in everyone closing of as many parts of his or her home as possible. Upon seeing the majority doing this, everyone copied it. After the Special Period the numbers dropped again, but the fences and iron grates remained. Compared internationally, Cuba always had an extremely low crime and violence rate. Even during the economic crisis, Cuban numbers were way below the average. Only during the last years, due to the upcoming tourism, little street crime rates rose slightly. The fencing can also be seen as a form of appropriating more personal space. Some of the portales (#35) on the Calzada del Cerro are closed off by fences to extend the private atmosphere onto the street.
Trash in a problem in the neighborhood of El Cerro. It either lays on the streets or in overful containers, making parts of the streetscape unpleasant and smelly. Some remnants of smaller garbage bins are found here and there, but they have been unused for a long time.
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#24
#25
Guagua
Guarapo
The guagua is an easy and cheap way to travel in La Habana. A ticket costs only 0,40 Cuban peso. It’s by far the most used way of transport for Cubans. That translates in extremely overfull busses. Sometimes the only thing that keeps you from falling are the persons between who you’re being sandwiched around you. There’s no fixed schedule and if you want to know where the guagua goes, you have to rely on the knowledge of bus drivers or fellow travelers. Only on the P-busses a rudimentary route is provided. Some stops are marked with the bypassing bus number, others with just bus stop signs and yet others are totally unmarked. You can recognize the bus stop by a bunch of people waiting together.
Sugar has always been one of the most important assets of Cuba. Guarapo is a drink that is freshly squeezed out of a sugarcane. Guaraperias (a place that sells guarapo) are found everywhere in the city. Everyday they get a delivery from the countryside. Sugarcanes are then constantly pushed through a machine to squeeze the juice out them. Add a little ice to make it cold and you have the perfect refreshment. Guarapo is sold everywhere for only 1 Cuban peso (CUP). You don’t take it to go: they serve it in a glass, you take the time you want to finish your drink while having a chat and they wash the glass for the next client.
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#27
High Ceilings
Hospitals
Many mansions like (former) casas quintas (#11) have a very high ground floor. This gives the colonial style housing, now often turned into casas particulares (#10), much splendor. Since it is almost a double height, it allows for the construction of barbacoas (#05) if extra living space is needed. This extra height makes ground floors more flexible in their use for something else than housing.
While some aspects of Cuban life are in a bad state, Cuba has many indicators of a first-world country. Health care is provided to everyone at all times throughout his or her life and the education in this sector is of an exemplary level to the world. Not only Cubans benefit from this, but Cuban doctors work all over the world and the Cuban state provides possibilities to foreign students to be taught in Cuba. For poor foreigners this education is even provided for free. All Cubans enjoy free education from the day they enter school until the day they stop studying. Hospitals can be found all over the country and almost every neighborhood has multiple hospitals.
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#26
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#28
#29
Incremental Housing
Music
There is a big housing shortage and many people need to take action themselves. Whether people live in an existing (part of a) house or need to construct a new one from scratch, housing evolves like a living organism. Even when people are able to afford a new place to build on, they often only construct the ground floor, but draw a plan for at least two extra floors, which they will build when they have the means to do so. This incremental development can be a safety issue when construction is not done right and is an attack on the already scarce open space in the city. Patios and gardens that were used for ventilation and some green space become built space. Around 95% of El Cerro is built space already.
Music is omnipresent in the daily life in Cuba and can be experienced in the whole streetscape: people dancing in front of their house, youngsters playing popular songs on their mobile phones on a square, music blasting through the speakers on an overfull guagua (#24), a jolly group of friends playing musical instruments and singing, the personal hit list of an almendrĂłn (#03) driver playing during the taxi service, the most recent music videos playing from the paquete (#31) on a television screen in the cafeterĂa (#09),... Although music can be very nice and enjoyable, sometimes it is just too much or too loud.
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#30
#31
Painting & Repainting
Paquete
Cubans love colors (#15) and show it on the facades of their houses. Since real renovations are often (financially) impossible, buildings are painted and repainted every once in a while to make them look good again. The choice of colors brings a lively identity to the neighborhoods of Havana.
The paquete or paquete semanal is a weekly package that contains around a terabyte of digital information and is spread out through Cuba on a weekly basis. It started as a clandestine operation organised by eight people around 2007, but today it has many local oranisations with a network that reaches at least half of the Cuban population with a weekly supply of movies, music, articles, series, newspapers, etc. Aaron Swartjes - Book of Cubanness
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#32
#33
Pasillo
Peso Convertible (CUC)
The pasillo is a small street leading into a building block. It gives acces to houses and other buildings that are located on the interior of a block. This extra collective layer in the urban fabric provides an interesting base for interactions. You often find neighbors in a pasillo sitting, talking or playing together. They have a stronger bond than people living in a regular street.
The convertible peso is one of the two official currencies in Cuba (next to the CUP (#34)), used since around 1985. It used to be set at a fixed 1:1 exchange rate to the United States Dollar. The CUC is used to pay luxury goods and services, imported goods and anything meant for foreigners and tourists.
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#35
Peso Cubano (CUP)
Portal
The Cuban Peso, moneda nacional or ‘national currency’ is one of the two official currencies in Cuba (next to the CUC (#33)). It is the currency in which most Cubans who work for the state receive their wages. Generally, shops that sell basic items like fruits or vegetables only accept the Peso Cubano.
A portal is a section between two pillars of the colonial corridors that are so representative in the Cuban urban fabric. The Calzada del Cerro is a beautiful example of a long street that is beset on both sides with a continuous row of portales that form shaded corridors. The portal is an interesting space that creates an extra level of collectivity between the street and the building. In the streetscape of El Cerro, it becomes clear that more and more people start appropriating a portal by sealing it off in different ways (#22). It becomes an extension of the private space, a gathering space in front of a business, an extension of the business, etc.
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#34
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#36
#37
Refresco
Repairing
Many small emerging businesses sell refrescos. It is the Cuban name for a soda drink. Just like guarapo (#25), they are served in a glass that you are supposed to drink in front of the cafeterĂa (#09). Drinking a refresco along the Calzada del Cerro is a popular activity. It is a perfect opportunity to take some shelter from the sun under one of the portales (#35) and get refreshed.
Because of many scarcities on the Cuban Island (mostly because of the US Embargo), Cubans have become experts in reparation. They have been using the same cars for decades (#03) and still manage to keep them running. You often notice small repair shops on the street or in people’s living rooms, where they repair bikes, watches or any other object you desire.
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#39
Revolution
Santería
The revolution is always present. Nowhere on the island you can miss the presence of the National Heroes. Whether it is printed on huge billboards or subtly painted on a wall, you can not miss the revolutionary slogans. When talking to people, many will sooner or later bring up ‘the triumph of the revolution’ in any conversation. Every single inhabitant already knows the whole story, but the Cuban state keeps advertising it to keep the story alive.
One of the most common religions in Cuba is Santería. Translated it means ‘the worship of saints’. Santería is a system of different beliefs merged together: mythologies of enslaved people that were brought to the New World (America), mixed with Catholicism and (Indigenous) American traditions. In the Cuban streetscape you often see people wearing completely white outfits with white umbrellas. These can be Santeros who were recently initiated, who are posessed or who have been cleansed. Small shops with paraphernalia of the Santería religion are located here and there, selling small candles, cigars or puppets for example.
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#40
#41
Tiles
Tropical Climate
Casas particulares (#10) and casas quintas (#11) are often decorated with beautiful and colorful tiles. These nice patterns are mostly found in the houses of more affluent people. A cheaper and more common way to decorate and add color is painting or repainting (#30).
The warm and tropical climate in Cuba is perfect for many beautiful plants to grown. As seen in parts of the streetscape and inside some houses, Cubans decorate their personal space with this vivid green. Sadly, most of the streetscape comes across as mineral and stone-like, because of an abscence of plants. Many Cubans would appreciate some more green space in their daily life.
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#42
#43
Vivienda
Wooden Support
A vivienda is a multi-family housing that looks like low-rise apartments. It is built by the state and is offered to factory workers and their families in the vicinity of their workplace. Viviendas are often plain and low-cost constructions, contrasting with the common ornamental building style in Cuba.
Cuban buildings are crumbling down. Everywhere you go you can see the cracks, voids and holes that indicate different levels of deterioration. Most of the times there is no money to do an actual renovation, so the only thing to keep the building from falling apart is to add extra structural support. These wooden supports are a very common sight in the Cuban streetscape. Aaron Swartjes - Book of Cubanness
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FIGURE LIST
Aaron Swartjes - Book of Cubanness
All images by Aaron Swartjes
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NOTES
BOOK OF CUBANNESS for the Master Dissertation Project: Collective Patchwork, Patchwork of Collectivity by
Aaron Swartjes
promotor Kris Scheerlinck - Streetscape Territories Research Project International Master of Science in Architecture: Urban Projects, Urban Cultures Program 2016 - 2017 KU Leuven, Faculty of Architecture, Campus Sint-Lucas Brussels contact: swartjes_aaron@hotmail.com