Second Havana Harbour Charrette - March 2008
Apr 9, 2011
The Cuban and Norwegian chapters of C.E.U. - Council for European Urbanism
Study Areas
La Habana Vieja - Atarés
The Charrette Organizers divided the Harbour into three sectors for investigation, design, and proposals:
La Habana Vieja - Atarés;
Regla - Refinery; and
Casablanca.
Each of the sectors have some common uses and landscape features, and they have fairly natural wetlands boundaries dividing one from the other.
This sector includes the historic center of the City. Old Havana and its fortifications were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982, and, since 1993, the Office of the Historian of Old Havana has used its organization to halt a century of deterioration and begin a self-financed, physical redevelopment. Areas of interest just outside Old Havana are the neighborhood around Calle Cárdenas with its beautiful 19th century residential buildings. Nearer the Harbour, a large sweep of land that includes the National Railroad station (“Central,”) the Tallapiedra power plant, and the Atarés fortress is being considered by national planning officials for alternate uses.
Regla - Refinery
The 18th century village of Regla lies on a peninsula which reaches into the very center of Havana Harbor. Its unique identity stems not only from its proximity to the water but by its separation from the rest of the city by massive industrial areas. The short ferry ride from Old Havana leads to the church of Nuestra Senora de La Regla and its associated waterfront square. Regla is a center of Afro Cuban culture and the Church is of importance to Santería. Just next to the ferry terminal is another redundant power plant. The tip of the peninsula is closed to the public, being used by the national government.
Casablanca
Technically, Casablanca is one of the districts of the municipality of Regla. However, It is physically distinct from Regla, and Its residents identify themselves quite separately. The settlement of Casablanca existed at the time the British invaded and conquered Cuba in the 18th Century. It is a hillside fishing village whose boundaries are La Cabaña fortress to the north and a wetlands wildlife reserve to the east. This hill town has some of the Harbour’s most distinctive landmarks. Besides La Cabaña there is the Cristo de La Habana, the Casa Blanca itself, and the national meteorological station with its white radar dome. The ferry from Old Havana disembarks at a plaza which marks the terminus of the electric railroad “the Hershey Train,” to and from Matzanzas. Many Cubans say that stepping off the ferry from Old Havana is the same as arriving in the ‘campo’ of rural Cuba. The Harbour’s active ship yards are in Casablanca, and there is a large hospital over the top of the hill. Unlike other parts of Havana, the pattern of streets and plazas is not on a reticulated grid. Streets follow contour lines to rise up the hill, and sets of steps cascade down the hill to cross them.
Heavy industrial uses dominate Regla’s traditional residential fabric in incongruous ways. For example, two active, freight railroad lines share 4 meter wide streets to cross the peninsula. They separate the lower, waterfront portion from the area around the main plaza a few minutes’ walk up the ridge line from the shore. Existing green spaces are largely the result of being unable to build on the cliff faces of the ridge in the upper part of the town. What had been the largest of Cuba’s two oil refineries until the completion of the one in Cienfuegos spreads to the east of Regla. National planning studies have proposed closing the refinery and replacing it with a new one west of Havana. Just to the south of the Refinery is the Via Blanca, the major traffic artery of the eastern side of the harbour.
At Old Havana’s harbour front itself, deteriorated areas from the Alameda de Paula to the El Coubre monument are being stabilized or demolished. The existing fish pier and container port which comprise the bulk of Atarés have been considered both for their current as well as alternate uses. Among a number of brownfield sites near the Harbour is a now abandoned landfill near the main road connecting Atarés to Regla.
Photo by Loren Witzel
Photo by Loren Witzel