Localizing the Preservation Problem

2019
TERMINAL SIERRA MAESTRA
HAVANA, CUBA + SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

Addressing the deterioration of the city’s built structures is critical to preserving social and cultural heritage in Havana, and to providing Habaneros safe places for living and working. Internationally-funded developer projects would likely transform the city’s skyline toward that of any other globalized city while erasing the informal social spaces throughout the city which are characteristically Cuban.

On the other hand, historic preservation in the typical sense cannot address the scale of necessary maintenance and upgrades; regardless, preservation for the sake of it is more likely to turn the city into a museum, with little benefit for, and perhaps at the expense of its present inhabitants. Precluding the extreme ends of the development spectrum (modernization to preservation), questions remain about what to do with Cuba’s built environment. To what extent can or should the existing homes and buildings of the city be salvaged? How can retrofits and new structures anticipate future uses? What constraints and opportunities for building follow from the environmental, social and economic contexts of the island? What tools do local citizens need to claim agency over their own spaces?

While this study use a site in Havana, Cuba - the questions it explored are widely applicable to any city that exists somewhere on the spectrum of globalization and ‘modernization’.