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Robert Polidori

Robert Polidori: Havana Hardcover – August 15, 2001

by Eduardo Luis Rodriguez (Author), Elizabeth Culbert (Editor), Robert Polidori (Photographer)

4.6 27 ratings

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Robert Polidori, often considered an architectural photographer, is in fact a photographer of habitat. On the surface his subjects are buildings, but at the core his lens is focused on the remnants and traces of living he finds scattered in hallways, left in back rooms and worn on facades. His spectacular color photographs are presented here in an appropriately oversized volume that capture both their monumentality and their attention to detail. Havana is a particularly rich setting for Polidori's inquiries. The curves and columns that line the streets refer to past eras and speak of the political, social and economic forces that have driven the city to its present condition. Through his rigorous and sensitive examination--facilitated by a sense of color and composition that makes his photographs feel like vivid memories--Polidori delicately peels away the patina of daily living and reveals the juxtapositions that create a city's identity. His photographs define the idea of faded grandeur. In this city the peddler lives where the countess once resided; children dance and tumble where merchants conducted their business. Each photograph is a discovery and a fragment of the city's biography.

Print length

160 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Steidl
Publication date

August 15, 2001
Dimensions

11.81 x 0.79 x 14.96 inches
ISBN-10

3882433337
ISBN-13

978-3882433333
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Robert Polidori's Havana is a haunting city of sherbet colors and peeling stucco, grand colonial architecture in decay, and real people who hang their laundry across a lofty foyer in an old mansion. Polidori's photographs, which fill the pages of this beautiful, oversized book, appear without comment, yet it is impossible to miss the affection and melancholy of his highly personal vision.

Review

...it's a lyrical romantic quality founded on fact, not just sweet romantic sentiment... -- The New York Times, August 23, 2001 --William L. Hamilton

chronicles the faded grandeur of Cubas crumbling colonial architecture. -- Elms Street, September 2001

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Steidl (August 15, 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 160 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 3882433337
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-3882433333
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 11.81 x 0.79 x 14.96 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,677,711 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,097 in Individual Photographers
- #6,905 in Individual Artists (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.6 27 ratings

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I. Martinez-Ybor

Melancholia made graphic

Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2002

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This is an extraordinarily beautiful book, extraordinarily well produced. Polidori is a graphic poet.
But then, what is it all about? No travel book, this.
There was a grand city, with grand, refined living, there was a sense of the visual, even in the simplest laying of stone upon a stone. The photographs attest to that. The grace, like the decay, is real. The rich, varied hues are real, if from fraying, unretouched paint, destined to change and pale with each passing day. Polidori's colors are not meant to be restored nor will ever there be a patina to be cleaned. Their destiny is to fade. One would like to think of this Havana as a grand opera set for a Nozze or an Ariadne where protagonists move like ghosts among the ruins, talking of betrayals, regrets and happy loves that are now merely wise. For some of us, that it is. For some of us it is the stones that are real, the peeling paint and the broken down chandeliers. People are the interlopers, people are like things, being where they do not belong. Yet in a grander sense those of us may be self-deceived. For in these pictures there is no real tension between flesh and wall. The grandiloquent decay, like an ever swelling musty velvet cape, gathers crumbling stone to unweeded garden to limpid sky to people ...... all into a deeply bundled melancholic recessional that will swallow everything and leave only moonless night behind. There is no future in this past, perhaps the most melancholy conjecture of all. It seems to me most photographs are lit by the late afternoon sun. The beauty makes one cry, we see our lives in the peeling paint and broken balustrades, the broken window frames, cracked marble, the rusted iron gates ....perhaps nowhere more than in the curious compromises of antiquated artifacts for everyday living pragmatically juxtaposed to broken down rococo splendor or dismembered bourgeois grandeur, trying to make do but never quite. This is brutally the passage of time with no attempt at cosmetic dissimulation or philosophical delay. We are all beyond reflection. Each picture seems to say unequivocally: all this has passed and all this will pass. Perhaps Havana has come to an old preordained denouement, arrived at a culmination old and forgotten, in the event, a summit, an end: Havana as a place never meant to truly be, a creature of our dreams, an incantation..... Wallace Stevens who only visited the Havana of the mind, wrote in "Academic Discourse in Havana" (1936):
"This may be benediction, sepulcher, and epitaph......
An infinite incantation of our selves
In the grand decadence of the perished swans."

25 people found this helpful

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Ed Munger

Beautiful..

Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2009

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There's a phrase that a lot of musical artist use to describe their works when it's dark and emo, 'beautiful mistake', 'beautiful tragedy', 'beautiful decay', etc. I don't 'feel' it all the time, but I 'get' it. It's an artful description.
In this case, the images off of these pages are absolutely beautiful. I don't mean rainbows and sparkly thing, stars and neon lights, or national geographic front cover. I mean beautiful like looking at another person's eyes and seeing their culture through their bone structure.
If I lost you, let me try to take you where I'm getting. Have you been to a museum of arts and wondered why is this art and why this artist instead of any other? I think that too. Then I start to get a closer look and ask different questions like why did the artist mix these colors in, why is the brush stroke in that direction? Were these mistakes or luck, or was everything put in it's right place?
That's the questions that I ask when I'm looking at this book. How is everything so perfect? The aging of paint on the walls, the discoloration on the sofa, the mold on the ceiling, all come together in each page and is captured so colorful and easy.
Each page is something that you'd want to hang on your wall and show yourself everyday an example of how mother nature paints over the things that man makes. And it all takes place in culturally embraced setting called Havana which makes it even more wonderful.

6 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

beautiful colors

Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2009

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Knowing that I will never be able to travel to Havana I wanted to get some idea of the city. I especially appreciated the facing pages that showed the building in disrepair and then after having been restored.

The colors used in both interiors and exteriors are generally beautiful. The photos many times seem more like paintings.

The book has exterior shots, interior shots and portraits of residents of the city. I would have appreciated more context. Did the lady of the house always live there? Were all those books hers? Or were they left by a previous occupant?

How was it possible for some residents to maintain their homes so beautifully in spite of the Cuban economic difficulties?

I especially noticed that the tradional architecture was so much more graceful and beautiful than the huge hotel overshadowing everything. Is that the future of Havana? More huge tourist hotels looming above the old city and the people?

Actually, the whole sad story of the decay of beauty reminded me of Detroit.

One person found this helpful

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Trompe

Gorgeous

Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2019

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The photographs go deep into the public and private areas of Versailles. A lot of surprising images that I will always treasure. The photos of "in progress" renovations are wonderful.

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Eric A. Vasallo

One of the best picture books on Havana!

Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2006

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Being Cuban American and having visited Havana numerous times as well as having the opportunity to actually see firsthand, many of these grand interiors Polidori so eloquently displays for all to page through and imagine the events that have transpired in these interiors. The joys, the struggles, the rise and fall of a culture with all it's social graces. This book captures what I captured with my own eyes passing through those marvelous mansions of Cuba's golden age. Havana is truly a Paris of the Caribbean, although decayed and damaged, she is still beautiful, graceful and inspirational to all who visit her. Thus the term "Havana-itis", a disease thought to befall visitors who fall instantly in love with the grand ole dame. I believe there is still hope for her to be restored to her rightful brilliance one day, If only the current government would allow it.

5 people found this helpful

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Nancy M. Jones

Havana, by Robert Polidori

Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2013

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This is a beautiful, unique book of photographs. The colors and the sense of atmosphere the photographer captured in these beautiful old buildings produced haunting images. It was, however, incredibly expensive. I bought a used copy which was in good enough condition to give as a Christmas gift. I could not afford a new copy.

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Mika Koch

Gute Raritäten haben ihren Preis

Reviewed in Germany on December 9, 2013

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Dieses schon mehrfach aufgelegte Kunstfotobuch ist nur noch selten und sehr schwierig zu bekommen.
Die Preise zu denen es hier gehandelt wird sprechen da sicher für sich. Berechtigt? nun ja ich würde nach heutigen Maßstäben im Bereich der Kunstfotobücher auf jeden Fall guten Gewissens einen Preis im Bereich bis zu 100 Euro bezahlen. Alles andere ist sicher Liebhaberei Sammelleidenschaft etc. Aber ich kann den Wertanstieg nachvollziehen.Polidoris Havana ist und bleibteines der wenigen Kunstfotobücher die meinen Sinn für wertige Bücher und gute Fotografie , die den Brückenschlag zwischen Dokumentation und künstlrischem Ansruch mühelos schafft, mit geprägt haben. Eine Rarität vom gesamten Niveau.Der visuell komplexen Thematik, des von der politisch und kulturhistorisch aufregenden Vergangenheit und geschichtlichen Wechselhaftigkeit geprägten Kuba haben sich schon einige Autoren genähert. Aber niemand so erfolgreich. Das Erbe einer goldenen Ära,die Erinnerungen an einen gelebten Traum unter der dampfenden Tropensonne wird von den Spuren der Vergänglichkeit und dem unerbittlichen Fortlauf der Zeit überzogen. Vor Polidoris Linse werden die ekletizitisch eingerichteten Räume, die von diesen Zeitspuren durchzogen sind und langsam ihr Wesen verändern zu Poesie.Gleichzeitig dokumentiert er den derzeitigen Zustand , der in Kuba vielerorts herrscht ohne den Finger zu heben.Ein bittersüßer und selten intensiver fotografischer Besuch in den Interiors aber auch Straßen von Havana machen Polidoris Buch zu einem Geheimtipp für Liebhaber guter Fotografie. Vor allem für die ,die sich von Bildern gern Geschichten erzählen lassen. In diesem Fall von einer kulturhistorisch spannungsgeladenen und beeindruckenden Region , die vieleSinnbilder für Werte innerhalb der Zivilisation und schlicht und ergreifend über das Leben an sich bereithält.

3 people found this helpful

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FrizzText - Didi van Frits

Lauernde Vitalitaet unterm Leichentuch...

Reviewed in Germany on November 25, 2002

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Senora Luisa Faxas Residenz in Miramar, an der Ecke der fuenften Avenue, die nicht wie die in New York wirkt, - diese sterbenden Raeume, man vergisst sie nicht so leicht. Die Buecherberge, schiefhaengenden Gemaelde, gemischt mit pausierenden Klavieren, Sofas, Fahhraedern - sie atmen deutlicher als alle Bilder, die sonst ueblicherweise begegnen, das Thema eines hoffnungsvollen, sehr farbenfrohen Lebensbeginns aus, das irgendwann umkippt in ein lethargisches dem Sterben Entgegendaemmern. Es ist nicht nur das Schicksal von Gebaeuden, sondern mit ihnen das einer verdorrten buergerlichen Kaste, es sind Familien-Ruinen wie rostige bourgeoise Dampfer inmitten einer warenboykottierten sozialistischen Wueste - viva nuestra revolucion socialista. Unter dem Leichentuch aber lauert immer noch jene Vitalitaet, die alles einmal in Gang brachte - und in einer nun hoffentlich bald einsetzenden Renaissance jenseits der verlorengegangenen kalten Kriege auch wieder zu neuem Leben aufspringt? Ein wahrlich inspirierendes Buch, das der beruehmte Architektur-Fotograf Robert Polidori da zusammengebracht hat - ergaenzt durch einen nicht zu verachtenden Essay von Eduardo Luis Rodriguez ...

7 people found this helpful

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Carlo

Ottimo

Reviewed in Italy on October 3, 2019

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In ottime condizioni

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Sylvia

A beautiful book which I will treasure