A dozen houses and real estate opened their doors this Saturday to visitors during the fourth edition of the open day in El Vedado, a neighborhood that expanding its urbanity in the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century and today welcomes the heart Politics of the country being the headquarters of the Communist Party, the Central Government and a good part of its ministerial apparatus.
The program proposed an itinerary that contemplated a tour of the residence of the British ambassador, the Servando Cabrera Moreno Library Museum (Villa Lita), the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture, the Federation of Cuban Women and the National Ballet of Cuba.
Likewise, a family residence was added on B, between line and road, the house that hosts the contemporary art line project of the plastic artist Wilfredo Prieto, the National Museum of Decorative Arts, the headquarters of the Presidency of the Union of Writers and artists from Cuba and the UNESCO regional office itself, detailed a report of the Cuban News Agency (ACN).
This event follows the wake of previous editions held in the summer of 2023 and March 2024, which had a remarkable participation of young people, students and families.
UNESCO in the foreground
Anne Lemaistre, director of the UNESCO Regional Office in Havana, told the ACN that the proposal allows to increase in public the appreciation of the heritage, architectural values and the urban impact of these 10 selected properties.
The idea is a joint work with the National Cuban Commission of UNESCO, in which students and professors of the Faculty of Architecture of the Technological University of Havana “José Antonio Echeverría” are involved, of the arts and lyrics of the University of Havana, from the San Gerónimo University College and the Higher Institute of Design -who participate in guidelines for these palace -, also covered by the National Monuments Commission and by the office of the historian of the city of Havana, explained Lemaistre.
According to the French official, the open doors allow democratic access to heritage and culture, and thanked the institutions and inhabitants that occupy those spaces for allowing the values of each place to be known and spread.
An expert at the Vedado
In turn, he praised the contributions of Madeline Menéndez, architect and author of the book The Vedado. Tradition and modernity in Havanera architecturewhose texts served to make small informative brochures for the visitors of the houses.
In dialogue with the press, the expert said that the Vedado is an urbanization born in the mid -nineteenth century that introduced its homes and public spaces a lot of modernity.
The presence of the green areas in gardens and portals was fundamental in the constructions of this neighborhood, and the route of the streets and its particular nomenclature in letters and numbers also distinguishes it, he said.
In its evolution, the architecture of the Vedado, which was initially associated with the colonial stage, incorporated lighter housing separated by corridors and with courtyards in the background where the most wealthy people of the dawn of the twentieth century were settled.
There are large palace and other less ostentatious houses, but both types have extraordinary heritage and architectural values of eclecticism, neoclassicism and other more modern spaces such as apartments, Menéndez stressed in the ACN report.
The Vedado is characterized by its variety and beauty due to the proximity with the Havana coast and, although it has suffered transformations, it is necessary to protect it for posterity, demanded the architect and doctor in Technical Sciences at the University of Havana, 2005.
