A city can be defined as a set of political, urban and personal narratives. Today Havana, Cuba, is a rapidly changing city that is in many ways defined by the politics of the past. The goal of this project is to analyze these narratives to establish new rules for the city’s changing landscape.
Havana as defined by Celia Del Pino in 'Dreaming in Cuban'.
Film Exploration of Havana's history, culture and politics.
The site of the project is at La Puntilla, a small peninsula on the western edge of the city. At the mouth of the Almendaris River, it faces the Atlantic Ocean in the North, the grand water-front hotels of the Malecon on the east, the wealthy district of Miramar on its west and the Torreón de la Chorrera immediately to its South. The grid between Vedado and Miramar is continuous except in this area. Taking advantage of this break, I viewed the project as an opportunity to generate a new outward-facing grain, opening Cuba to the world and propelling it into the future.
Since tourism and the sea play such a crucial role in the modern city of Havana, the program was determined to be a hotel. This would draw in the different kinds of characters the initial investigation studied and in turn, reflect the complexity of physical site.
