This seminar explores modern architecture and urbanism in Cuba, including the full kaleidoscope of historical, political, and cultural effects before and after the 1959 Revolution. Using the North-South relationship as the basic matrix, individual sessions will explore the spatial dimensions of a wide range of issues ranging from revolution, utopia, cold war, prefabrication, tropical modernism, ruins, preservation, disease, sexuality, violence, resistance, etc. Through a series of case studies – sites, buildings, urban projects – we think of Cuba as a laboratory of modern architecture under the influence of multiple norths and souths.
