Placed in an abandoned theatre, the scheme deals with the implications of lifting the embargo on Cuba, and the effects of foreign investment on the urban life of Havana. Casting had become a vehicle to the architectural expression of the project. It expresses a method of preservation, of a city that is due to change as a result of economic instability.
Once a city intoxicated by the promise of the revolution, now Havana is a city divided between the locals and the tourists. It is a city conflicted with extremes, and continual political charge. From affirmation to surprises. Cuba is a city which has suffered from many years of US economic embargo, with most of its heritage in ruins and heavy dependency on tourism. However, the local method of living has proved to be resilient;
challenged by a fierce foreign investment bringing large development into various city areas.
Talking to tourist guides, local residents and academics, the project not only absorbed art deco and modernist buildings but was also the result of imagining a new radical agenda for the future of Havana.
Between architectural symbolism and materiality, the work takes its own position to debate on the role of architecture towards memory, performance and the city. Discussing Havana not only by the possible,
but also the imaginable enabled the project to link ghosts of the pasts to generational challenges of a corporate future.
