AD Visits_ Havana, Cuba

I'm Mitchell Owens, the Decorative Arts and Antiques Editor of Architectural Digest, and I will go anywhere in the world to see a great building. Cuba was always looking to America, to Europe, for style cues. So you see these amazing French-style houses, Belle Epoque architecture, neoclassical American modern villas, 1950s architecture. One of the most extraordinary parts of Havana are these iron grills that cover the windows and doors full length on the ground floor so that you could open up your houses completely to get breezes, but you still had privacy. The city fathers, in their infinite architectural wisdom, insisted that buildings have arcades that link them because of the heat so that you can walk any number of blocks without ever having to step into the sun. A lot of the buildings in Havana are in terrible, terrible repair. One of the problems with concrete is it doesn't hold up very well in salt air. It has to constantly be painted freshly every year. You walk down these city streets and it's just like walking into a box of Jordan almonds. You know, a blue house, a yellow house, a pink house, a green house, going for blocks and blocks. One of the most famous houses in the Havana area is Fincavigia, the American writer Ernest Hemingway's farm, with these great white, airy rooms paved in tile. It is one of the most popular spots in Havana for tourists. Another extraordinary building in Havana is the Decorative Arts Museum, which was built in the 1920s by a sugar baron. It's this beautiful French little palace. I mean, you could easily find it in Paris, and it was, in fact, decorated by the great Parisian design firm, Janssen. And then there is the art school, built in the 1960s. It's one of the most famous post-1960 architectural complexes in the country. It's a village of these brick, domed, circular structures based on African huts, all connected by these very sensual, curving arcades. As Miguel Coyula, the Havana urban planner, told me, the architecture of Havana is the city's golden egg. They don't want it to be destroyed. To live in this extraordinary city, surrounded by buildings that are a treasure of four centuries of mankind's attention to style and architecture and design, to be able to preserve that is a really special thing. And I certainly hope, as the doors open wider for American tourism, that as much of that flavor will be preserved as possible.