PORTICO & PATIO: CONTINUITY & CHANGE IN CUBAN MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE

This exhibition captures the uniquely inventive architecture of the period immediately following the Cuban Revolution of 1959 in drawings, models and photographs.

This was a brief time of great upheaval for the nascent island nation, and one in which the particular (and peculiar) economic and political conditions served to intensify many aspects of the practice of architecture. Ties with the United States and other western nations were severed, and ultimately closer relationships would be forged with Soviet states. These changes impacted trade (crucially affecting the availability of fuel and building materials) and also resulted in new considerations of national identity, of what it meant to be Cuban. Architecture sits at the intersection of these concerns, and so can be seen to have become a visible manifestation of the enormous change taking place within society.