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By
Gordon Bonin
Of the NEWS Staff
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John
Michalowski, a social studies teacher at Katahdin High School
in Sherman Station, is also an architect. So in the week
he was in Cuba, he was interested in buildings.
Everywhere in Havana is Baroque intricacy, in the balconies,
doorways and windows. The city is a treasure-trove of Spanish
colonial architecture.
The Cathedral of San Cristobal de la Habana in Old Havana,
with its different towers, is a beautiful example of colonial
architecture, he said.
But what is also striking is the Caribbean influence, especially
on the buildings that date to the 1930s and ‘40s, he
added.
The city also had some of the most stylish gas stations
Michalowski had ever seen; some were even done in tile around
the gas pumps.
The poor parts of Havana reminded him of Mexican border
towns, such as Nogales, said Michalowski, who used to live
in Arizona. "What they’ve done with concrete is
amazing."
However, what they haven’t done is the problem, and
that is maintenance.
The condition of a typical building in Havana, outside
the tourist areas where there has been extensive renovation,
is "very, very bad," Michalowski said.
Concrete buildings need to be patched and repainted regularly,
he said. But it appears that in the past 20 or 30 years
there has been very little upkeep.
On a night that saw a heavy downpour, Michalowski went
around Havana with a Cuban he met. They ended up near the
city’s main hospital just as two ambulances pulled
up in quick succession.
Michalowski’s friend indicated that the most likely
reason that two ambulances arrived so close together was
that the rain had caused a building to collapse.
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"You can see people living on one floor of a building
while the floor above is gone," Michalowski said. "They
need massive rebuilding. It would take a quarter-century to
bring the city back."
Churches throughout Havana, however, were in good shape,
most likely brushed up for Pope John Paul II’s in 1998,
he said.
One of the most interesting architectural aspects of the
trip for Michalowski was a visit to a planned village about
two hours west of Havana in Pinar del Rio Province.
The village, Las Terrazas, was built in 1971 in the midst
of reforested coffee plantations. The name comes from the
terraces dug out of the hillsides to plant the trees. The
area became a UNESCO-sanctioned biosphere reserve.
The village is an example of the principles preached by the
French architect Le Corbusier, who died in 1965, Michalowski
said. It also has elements of a neo-hacienda style, with concrete
formed to look like wooden roof beams and columns.
Following Le Corbusier, all the buildings "are done
at the scale of a man," Michalowski said.
No building is higher than three stories. The three-level
community building has shops on the first floor. The second
level is an open-sided sitting area with tables and chairs.
The top level holds offices for the village doctors and dentists
as well as more stores.
The stores and offices are reached by balcony-walkways on
the outside of the building rather than an internal corridor.
"You can see people walking. It’s very personal,"
Michalowski said. "This is probably the first town built
on the principals of the Revolution. It is set up for the
betterment of everyone. This is to show you what it could
be like."
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Next article: Billboards promote political wisdom
rather than products
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