Havana: Between magic and decay
In recent years, Havana has become famous all over the world for the morbid charm of its flaking facades – a curious blend of magic and decay. 55 years of totalitarian dictatorship have left the city of Havana suspended in a peculiar state halfway between preservation and destruction. The beauty of this city lies in the poetry of its ruins. But, these ruins are far less poetic, for the people who inhabit them.
After the 1959 Revolution the rural and urban poor were rehoused in the buildings vacated by the one million Cubans who chose exile to being part of a socialist experiment. In the capital the poor have largely stayed in the more densely populated Old and Central Havana. No one in Cuba has actual ownership of buildings so that there’s been no vested interest in repairing them.
The city is like a great set of variations on the theme of urban decay. The stucco has given way to mold; roofs have gone, replaced by corrugated iron; shutters have crumbled into sawdust; staircases end in precipices; windows lack glass; doors are off their hinges; ancient electrical wiring emerges from walls; wrought ironwork balconies crumble into rust. Every grand and beautifully room has been subdivided by plywood partitions into smaller spaces, in which entire families now live.
It cannot be said, however, that the inhabitants of Havana appear notably unhappy – far from it. There is plenty of social life in the streets, much smiling and laughter, and it isn’t hard to find a small fiesta with music and dancing. When you look into the homes that the people have made among the ruins, there are the small, heartbreaking signs of pride and self-respect: the carefully tended plastic flowers and other cheap ornaments, for example.
These images present the ambivalent admixture of beauty and dereliction. Regime change will come and with it an intensification of the wave of renovation and urban renewal. This is a unique historical moment, which may be out of reach in just a few years.
Havana: Between magic and decay
In recent years, Havana has become famous all over the world for the morbid charm of its flaking facades – a curious blend of magic and decay. 55 years of totalitarian dictatorship have left the city of Havana suspended in a peculiar state halfway between preservation and destruction. The beauty of this city lies in the poetry of its ruins. But, these ruins are far less poetic, for the people who inhabit them.
After the 1959 Revolution the rural and urban poor were rehoused in the buildings vacated by the one million Cubans who chose exile to being part of a socialist experiment. In the capital the poor have largely stayed in the more densely populated Old and Central Havana. No one in Cuba has actual ownership of buildings so that there’s been no vested interest in repairing them.
The city is like a great set of variations on the theme of urban decay. The stucco has given way to mold; roofs have gone, replaced by corrugated iron; shutters have crumbled into sawdust; staircases end in precipices; windows lack glass; doors are off their hinges; ancient electrical wiring emerges from walls; wrought ironwork balconies crumble into rust. Every grand and beautifully room has been subdivided by plywood partitions into smaller spaces, in which entire families now live.
It cannot be said, however, that the inhabitants of Havana appear notably unhappy – far from it. There is plenty of social life in the streets, much smiling and laughter, and it isn’t hard to find a small fiesta with music and dancing. When you look into the homes that the people have made among the ruins, there are the small, heartbreaking signs of pride and self-respect: the carefully tended plastic flowers and other cheap ornaments, for example.
These images present the ambivalent admixture of beauty and dereliction. Regime change will come and with it an intensification of the wave of renovation and urban renewal. This is a unique historical moment, which may be out of reach in just a few years.
