Metallic paneling was used to reflect light in the lounge area of the women’s restroom in the Cine-Teatro America, completed in 1941.

The Edificio Emilio Bacardi was fully restored in 2001 by Oficina del Historiador de la Ciudad. A list of the companies that participated in the restoration is included in the book.

book review

Tropical Deco

Havana Deco
By Alejandro G. Alonso, Pedro Contreras
and Martino Fagiuoli
W.W. Norton & Company, New York, NY; 2006
192 pp.; clothbound; 300 color illus.; $39.95
ISBN 978-0-393-73232-0

Reviewed by Annabel Hsin

The 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris is commonly seen as the birth of Art Deco. The exposition featured not only a new style in industrial design, decorative and fine arts and architecture, but also Constructivist and Modernist work, notably by Le Corbusier and Rodchenko. While it was undeniably eclectic, Art Deco shared a philosophical claim to universality with its less decorative contemporaries. It is interesting, then, to study this new book on regional variations of an “international” style.

The Chrysler building or the Buffalo City Hall may embody the Northern version of the style, but the Art Deco buildings of Havana are reminiscent of the hotels of Miami Beach, favoring bright bold colors, porches and stained-glass windows.

Havana Deco was first published in 2003 in Spanish and Italian. The book consists of an introduction followed by three chapters: “Architecture,” “Interiors and Furniture” and “Visual Arts.” The introduction gives a brief overview of Art Deco’s history and explains how it became an influential style in Cuba, using Cuban books and periodicals as sources. The short comments in the following chapters explain the relationship between Cuban culture and the development of the style. A majority of the book focuses on building synopses and analytical reviews of specific architectural details. There are sections within the chapters that cover suburban and urban residential areas and public buildings such as hospitals, cinemas, skyscrapers, religious buildings and cemetery monuments. Some sections also cover Art Deco-influenced styles like Streamline and Greco-Deco. The 300 color photos tend to eliminate deteriorating streets, focusing readers on specific architectural elements.

Havana Deco places a heavy emphasis on Edificio Emilio Bacardi’s exterior and interior because it serves as a good example of Cuba’s “immense and renowned ability to assimilate.” Located in Old Havana, the building was completed in 1930 and marked the beginning of the Art Deco period in Cuba. It was commissioned by the rum-making family and designed by architects Esteban Rodriguez Castells and Rafael Fernandez Ruenes, and engineer Jose Menendez.

At the time of its completion, it was the tallest building in Havana’s central zone and was considered a daring design. A copper bat placed atop a Babylonian-inspired ziggurat serves as the building’s focal point, while the façade was constructed with imported Labrador and red Bavarian granite, creating a multi-colored exterior. The building’s size, use of imported materials and architectural revisions were spurred on by Castells’ trip to the 1925 exposition.

The interior of Edificio Bacardi features imported marble and granite, which create a sense of harmony with the exterior of the structure. Soft green marble, until then never used in Cuba, covers the vestibule while black and white veined marble lines the walls from floor to ceiling in the lobby. Plant-inspired designs, such as banana-leaf and pineapple motifs, were the main themes on stained-glass windows and iron grilles. The bar, an essential staple to the company that funded the building, was cleverly placed on top of a showroom on the ground floor, making it the focal point of the lobby. Edificio Bacardi is one of the few buildings of its era in Havana to have undergone recent restoration. Perhaps the most useful aspect of the book for architects and designers is the comparative photo spreads of specific architectural elements found throughout. The spread for “Doorways,” for example, consists of a brief introduction and 16 photos depicting paneled doors, overdoors and jambs. The range of designs and details is remarkable.

Another useful feature is the focus on specific elements of certain buildings. In the stairs section of the “Interiors and Furniture” chapter, for example, a stairway in an apartment building in El Vedado features combined half-turned stairs with winder steps to give the stairs a geometrical pattern when viewed from above. The use of contrasting marble colors on the tread and risers provides a completely different image when observed from the bottom landing. The section provides three images at different angles of the same stairway to show the different effects.

Havana Deco is a fascinating document of the collision of a Modernist style with regional character. Its only shortcoming is that not all photos have labeling captions and without a photo index there is no quick way to identify them, except to read through the text. Nonetheless, this serious coffee table book makes a worthwhile addition to any professional library.TB