Constitutional Modernism: Architecture and Civil Society in Cuba, 1933-1959

383 Pages·2014·4.735 MB·English

by  Timothy Hyde

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Constitutional Modernism
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Constitutional
Modernism
architecture and civil society
in cuba,
1933–1959
Timothy Hyde
university of minnesota press
minneapolis • london
This book is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced
Studies in the Fine Arts.
The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges the work of
Edward Dimendberg, editorial consultant, on this project.
Portions of the text have been published in Timothy Hyde, “Planos, planes y
planificación: Josep Lluís Sert and the Idea of Planning,” in Josep Lluís Sert:
The Architect of Urban Design,ed. Eric Mumford and Hashim Sarkis (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 55–75; and in Timothy Hyde, “Mejores
ciudades, ciudadanos mejores: Law and Architecture in the Cuban Republic,”
in Governing by Design: Architecture, Economy, and Politics in the Twentieth
Century,Aggregate (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012).
Copyright 2012 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
isbn978-1-4529-4015-1
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
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Contents
Abbreviations vii
Introduction: Constitutionalism and Civil Society 1
I CONSTITUTION
1 The Idealized Republic: The Constitution of 1940 21
2 Better Cities, Better Citizens: The Political Function of
Planning 39
3 A Perfect Structuring: Representing the Nation as Plan
and Purpose 69
II CITY
4 Public Works: Constructing the Urban Spaces of Civil Society 111
5 Master Plans: The Retrospective Order of the Plan Piloto
de la Habana 139
6 Historic Districts: The Regulation of the Past in Habana Vieja 177
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III MONUMENT
7 The Experience of Civic Conscience: Designs for the Monumento
a Martí 213
8 The Prospect of cubanidad:Figural Forms and the Palacio
de las Palmas 253
Epilogue: Futures of Constitutional Modernism 289
Acknowledgments 301
Notes 303
Bibliography 337
Index 351
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Abbreviations
AIA American Institute of Architects
ATEC Agrupación Tectónica de Expresión Contemporánea (Tectonic
Group of Contemporary Expression)
BANDES Banco de Desarrollo Económico y Social (Economic and Social
Development Bank)
BANFAIC Banco de Fomento Agrícola e Industrial de Cuba (Cuban
Agricultural and Industrial Development Bank)
CIAM Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (International
Congresses of Modern Architecture)
FC Félix Candela Papers
GATEPAC Grup d’Arquitectes i Tècnics Españoles per al Progrés de
l’Arquitectura Contemporània (Group of Spanish Architects and
Technicians for the Progress of Contemporary Architecture)
GSD Graduate School of Design
JL Jean Labatut Papers
JLS José Luis Sert Collection
JNE Junta Nacional de Economía (National Economy Board)
JNP Junta Nacional de Planificación (National Planning Board)
vii
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viii Abbreviations
MARS Modern Architectural Research Group
MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology
OPRH Oficina del Plan Regulador de la Habana (Oªce of the Master
Plan of Havana)
PLW Paul Lester Wiener Collection
SOM Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill
TPA Town Planning Associates
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Introduction
Constitutionalism and
Civil Society
Before their appearance as material entities, cities had to be constructed
as symbolic representations. Therefore, the permanence of the whole
depended on the immutability of the signs themselves—on the words
that transmitted the will to build the city in accordance with the stipulated
norms—and also on the diagrams that translated the will into graphic
terms. Without drawn plans the mental image created by the written
directives was more likely to su¤er permutations owing to local
conditions or inexpert execution. Thinking the city was the function of
these symbolic systems, and their growing autonomy suited them
increasingly to the manipulations of absolute authority.
—Ángel Rama, The Lettered City
Three photographs on the cover of the March 1955 issue of Arquitectura
present a trinity of monumental public buildings: the Catedral de la
Habana, the Capitolio Nacional, and, superimposed upon the other two,
the new Tribunal de Cuentas (Figure I.1). This grouping of images portrays
the seeming inevitability of a progressive development of Cuban architecture
from the baroque style of the early colonial period, to the neoclassicism of the
late nineteenth and early twentieth century, to the modernism of the postwar
decades. The images evoke also a lineage for the progressive development of the
Cuban nation, from its colonial past to its modern present, but it is a lineage
charted in the latent terms of the persistent sway of hegemonic powers in Cuba.
The Catedral was a symbol and reminder of the island’s long existence as a
Spanish colony, and though idiosyncrasies in its baroque form could be claimed
as uniquely Cuban, it remained in 1955 an embodiment of the universalizing
intention and the institutional reach of the former imperial enterprise. As for the
1