As tourism to this once blockaded country grows, visitors will be seeking a Cuban aesthetic with modern amenities. Their crumbling infrastructure cannot support luxury hotels, quality restaurants and commercial stores. Instead of demolishing heritage buildings, many contractors are looking to city hubs like the Colon Neighbourhood, which borders Old Havana, to purchase and renovate tourist amenities. This suggests that much of the funding and support stays at the gentry level, leaving none to support the locals. As Diane Barthel has argued, social actors – politicians, tourists, investors, locals – create the collective memory of Havana, but maintaining architectural authenticity is elusive due to the unequal influence they have on their environment (as quoted in Scarpaci, 2000).
In prioritizing the US dollar and modernizing for tourism, this insensitive development forgets the needs of their locals.
In order to preserve the true Cuban and Habanero identity, Havana’s restoration process needs to be culturally sensitive and socially appropriate otherwise they risk erasure of their true Cuban identity [based on social memory and national identity]. While Havana’s architectural style could be described as “style without a style” due to the influence of international builders, the peripheral neighbourhoods have developed a landscape that represents the Habanero struggles with poverty, conflict, social differences and religious beliefs (Venegas, 1997; Rojas, 2003). Their townscapes represent how they deal with adversity and understand their environment. Destroying symbols of the local experience confirms the erasure of their non-marketable cultural identity.
Havana’s peri-urban outskirts have remained relatively untouched by Western modernization and globalization, yet much attention has been given to its heritage structures by international builders. As a result, Havana’s appearance reflects a struggle between social and economic development, and is continued to be exacerbated by foreign monetary investments and influence.
References
Rojas, Angela. (2003) Memory, Values and Teaching in Havana. In: 14th ICOMOS General Assembly and International Symposium: ‘Place, memory, meaning: preserving intangible values in monuments and sites’, 27 – 31 oct 2003, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. http://openarchive.icomos.org/512/
Scarpaci, J. (2000). Reshaping Habana Vieja: Revitalization, historic preservation, and restructuring in the socialist city. Urban Geography, 21(8), pp. 724-744. Available from: doi:10.2747/0272-3638.21.8.724 [Accessed 26th January 2017].
Venegas, Cristina. (1997). Cuba and Internet Development: Critical Considerations for Caribbean Cyberspace. Communicare, 16(1), pp. 49 – 56.