By now there have been quite a few books about the architectural treasures that may be found in Cuba, particularly in Havana. Like exotic orchids miraculously sprouting in fields of wild, neglected, weeds, buildings have been selected for preservation either by deliberate public policy or vagaries of chance, such as choice for a foreign embassy or exigencies of Cuban diplomatic protocol. Why this one was restored and not that one, why this one after having succumbed to neglect for a significant while (e.g. careful viewing of the Pollack residence reveals that ornate murals that once graced walls have been reduced by half), remains somewhat of a mystery while revealing discerning taste. Apparently some of the larger Havana houses have become government offices or multiple family dwellings. For a poetic view of Havana in decay there is none better than Robert Polidori's photographic masterpiece: "Havana." In some areas, like "La Habana Vieja" (Old Havana) concerned Cuban authorities coupled with Unesco funds, preserved whole sections of prime colonial structures, not always of palaces, convents and fortresses, but of ordinary colonial residences which gives us glimpses in the 21st century of what life must have been like at various points during the 17th through 19th century when Havana was the main gateway to the Spanish empire in the Americas. In other cases, we are left with orchids in fields of weeds, charmed structures in the detritus of revolutionary squalor. Hermes Mallea's masterful work examines the orchids, and gives us some vague hints of life avant le deluge.
This is an honest book: the Preface, with the extravagant portrait of the author's aunt, and its deeply felt text, establishes unquestionably that developing this complex project, comprising research, directing photography and writing text, has been a very personal quest for him. Mr. Mallea is an architect (the M Group in New York is his firm). His focus never wavers, it is the structure: its purpose and relevance, its novelty and elegance, and the scholarly notice of its provenance and influence. But this is not a book solely of brick and mortar. As a Cuban-American, young enough not to have savored life before the revolution, nonetheless he is well aware of the fullness and the sweetness that could permeate life within the walls he now analyzes. His title delimits his work: Great Houses of Havana. This book is not about public spaces. There are some unavoidable churches and forts and public buildings, but en passant. The book is about residences. Brilliant as the revelation of architectural detail is, the reader never loses sight that lives were lived, human feelings felt and explored, births, deaths, marriages, divorces, the whole plethora of human emotion experienced in these "Great Houses." That the houses were "great" does not make the emotions lived within less genuine than had they been experienced in more humble surroundings. A social history of Cuba this is not, nor an analysis of the forces that tore the Cuban republic apart. But whereas many volumes of Cuban beautiful buildings ignore the people who lived in them, Hermes Mallea by sprinkling the text with period photographs, some as recent as of the nineteen-fifties, pays homage and respect, to the human beings involved, devoid of sociology, economics and politics. But the center of the book remains the beauty of the architecture mainly through the period of the Cuban republic; for more analytical and comprehensive views of Cuban society of the period, one has to look elsewhere.
The first chapter is essential reading: Havana in the Nineteenth Century. It sets the basis for much that is to follow. Much that is germane to architecture in the tropics where effort was placed in capturing shade and breezes, is covered there. Indeed, what became indispensable to the design of Cuban interiors, the "mampara," an at times ornate three-quarters door which afforded the best of privacy and ventilation, seems uniquely Cuban. Though it now occurs to me, there may have been similar contraptions in southern Spain, perhaps urban India of the time, for the very same reasons, yet the "mampara" seems to carry a uniquely Cuban flavor. Mallea gives us glimpses of interiors that are warm and rich with family life, while at the same time describing how space was arranged so as to maximize breeze and circulation. He notes how this at one time, created an affability and sense of community in the old city, as windows opened out to the street, and it was not unusual for there to be inter-action with known passers-by. Thus architecture influenced social life, in the same manner that nature influenced architecture. It is symbolic of how well this book is structured, and how Mallea's keen eye and powerful insight informs the work, that many chapters later, after traversing much that is ornate and palatial, we are back at the interplay of nature and design. Analyzing Richard Neutra's home for the von Schultess,' the same colonial reasoning is brought into play, the same principle of tropical ventilation as determinant of design, where floor plans reveal a house of clean, chaste, elegant modern lines, one-room width, long vistas, insuring ventilation, room air-conditioning provided only for bedrooms upstairs, and the spaces perfectly blended into the gardens designed by landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx.
This house, now the residence of the Swiss Ambassador to Cuba, though not the final chapter in the book, is the logical conclusion of the arc that has been traced throughout its pages. It was a stroke of extraordinarily perceptive judgement for the von Schultess to have brought Richard Neutra to design in Cuba, his first (his only?) in the Caribbean. A Hungarian Jew, trained mainly in Vienna, Neutra came to the USA in the 1920's and became a premier architect, indeed one of the geniuses of modernism, particularly adept at integrating design with the California spaces in which he loved to work. A Cuban architect, Raúl Álvarez, was brought in by Neutra as an integral part of his team; he helped give the project a Cuban feel, an identity with the locale. This chapter in Mallea's book is truly outstanding, as it combines all elements in project gestation, design, and execution with experiences of extant von Schultess family members into a thorough analysis of the harmonious whole as it stands today. This chapter by itself is worth the price of admission. But there are riches throughout Mallea's work.
Given the nature of the book, photographs have been compiled from many sources. However, many were taken especially for the book by Hermes Mallea himself, and he proves himself a fine photographer particularly of ornamental detail and perspective. There is, as well, the fine work of Cuban photographers Adrian Fernández and Nestor Martí (whose photograph of the staircase in the Hilda Sarrá house is breathtaking). Neither was previously known to me.
Hermes Mallea's transcends in scholarship and human content similar works that become coffee table adornments when set by its side. It is thorough, rigorously informed without pedantry, and belongs in any library which reflects interest in architecture and in its Cubans subject matter. Indeed, this book belongs with anyone interested in things beautiful.
In the interest of editorial integrity I must disclose that the author and I discussed on several occasions aspects of the subject matter involved while the work was being developed. However, creatively the work reflects exclusively the point of view, sensitivity and execution of Hermes Mallea.
