Old Cuba

OLD

CUBA

Alicia E. García Photos by Julio A. Larramendi

Caption Gia sincid que vidis volorro cus et id quas nobis et ipsumquibust aut liquis susande lluptas pe dipist videliq uaectia si derchil minvenissus del ipsanim agniam dit hicipsa ndamendi alitem nullesci none sunt officius aut et quam eossecto mi, omnis aditibu sciliam simolorem in parchiliquam facideritat. Caption Gia sincid que vidis volorro cus et id quas nobis et ipsumquibust aut liquis susande lluptas pe dipist videliq uaectia si derchil minvenissus del ipsanim agniam dit hicipsa ndamendi alitem nullesci none sunt officius aut et quam eossecto mi, omnis aditibu sciliam simolorem in parchiliquam facideritat. Caption Gia sincid que vidis volorro cus et id quas nobis et ipsumquibust aut liquis susande lluptas pe dipist videliq uaectia si derchil minvenissus del ipsanim agniam dit hicipsa ndamendi alitem nullesci none sunt officius aut et quam eossecto mi, omnis aditibu sciliam simolorem in parchiliquam facideritat. Caption Gia sincid que vidis volorro cus et id quas nobis et ipsumquibust aut liquis susande lluptas pe dipist videliq uaectia si derchil minvenissus del ipsanim agniam dit hicipsa ndamendi alitem nullesci none sunt officius aut et quam eossecto mi, omnis aditibu sciliam simolorem in parchiliquam facideritat.

In the center of the majestic courtyard surrounded by galleries that are held up by columns with arches is the statue of Admiral Christopher Columbus sculpted by J. Cuchiari and placed there in 1862.

17th-CENTURY HOUSES Early Havana homes were markedly trabeated with very low ceilings; precise edges and geometric compositions; and pronounced contrasts given the chiaroscuro of the shadows and the light projected by the overhanging eaves, the carvings on their roofs, the lime-coated walls and the burnt sienna tones of its cedar armatures, the “parrot green” doors and the intense colors of the clay roof tiles.

TENIENTE REY AT THE CORNER OF AGUIAR, 17th century/1720–19th century Old Havana saw the appearance of a type of dwelling whose front door was positioned at the far end of the façade, on a broken axis line with a courtyard that had no galleries on the long sides. This arrangement is reminiscent of Moslem houses in the Spanish city of Granada. A corner shop with a wooden balcony—a typical structure seen in Caribbean city-ports—was attached to the side.

Left: GOVERNMENT HOUSE 1851–1853/1923–1931. Gobierno Provincial. Antonio Montenegro, Engineer; José Carbó, Master Builder

Above: TRIOLET PHARMACY 1882. Museo Farmacéutico The pharmacy owned by Ernesto Triolet remained in operation from January 1, 1882 until it became the Pharmaceutical Museum in 1964. It contains valuable objects, some of which are considered one-of-a-kind.

SANTA CLARA

Santa Clara became preeminent in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Centrally located, Vidal Park is surrounded by the townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most important buildings.

LEONCIO VIDAL PARK

HOME OF CLARA CARTA PONS ca. 1834. Museo de Artes Decorativas This residence is one of the few from the colonial period that has survived without major changes. It is built around a spacious courtyard surrounded by galleries held up by wooden posts. Its rooms contain valuable objects and furniture from the 19th century.

MANUEL DA SILVA HOUSE 1888/1889 According to records, the house built by José Romero on this plot of land in 1781 was the first in the city. On the same plot, Da Silva erected four large houses with courtyards in the late 19th century. All four houses share a large porch and are considered some of Gibara’s most typical houses.

VALLE DE VIÑALES Located in the Sierra de los Órganos near the city of Pinar del Río, the Viñales Valley is famous for its unique landscape of mogotes—isolated, steep-sided hills that rise sharply from the ground with unusually shaped silhouettes. Because of its natural merits, Viñales was included on the list of Cuban Natural Parks in 1999 and was declared by UNESCO a World Natural Heritage Site. The small farming town of Viñales has late 19th- and early 20thcentury traditional wooden houses with tile roofs and front porches. The valley is also noted for authentic examples of the unique vernacular architecture in the area.

BOHÍOS AND COUNTRY HOUSES When the Spanish chronicler Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo characterized the dwellings of pre-Hispanic peoples in the Antilles, he described two types: the circular hut called caney used by most of the natives and rectangular huts used by the tribal chieftains. Fernández de Oviedo called both types bohíos, a term that has served to identify the vernacular buildings in the region. In the beginning, the word bohío was used only for the peculiar Indian huts. The dwellings of the Spanish were called wooden houses, which were built using suitable tools for cutting wood as well as steel nails to hold down the planks. These wooden houses predominated during the early stages of development of the island’s towns and coexisted with the houses constructed with finer materials. From the 17th century, it was common to build walls of embarrado, a term referring to walls made of raw earth mixed with plant matter and held together by wooden posts and a crisscross framework of sticks. The embarrado technique, called bahareque in the northern regions of South America and quincha in the Southern Cone, has been associated with pre-Hispanic building traditions, although earth buildings go back to the dawn of civilization and so were known to all peoples in the history of the world. The presence of bohíos—made either of wooden planks or earthen walls—in rural areas increased as the forms of extensive territorial ownership of the early centuries changed to smallholdings, especially tobacco farms and mills that were springing up around rivers since time immemorial. Gradually, bohíos became peasant homes par excellence. Nowadays, both types of bohíos, with planks or earthen walls, are still around in the countryside, using roofs of guano (dry palm leaves), tiles, zinc or other more modern solutions.

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