Brutalism in Cuba

Cuba's postrevolutionary architecture embraced concrete both from necessity and conviction, producing experimental schools, housing and civic buildings through the 1960s despite material shortages. Antonio Quintana, the leading modernist of the period, championed prefabrication and tall concrete construction in Havana; the Edificio Girón (1967), with its brise-soleil facade raised on massive supports, is a landmark of the era. Cuban brutalism is inseparable from the state building programs of the time, and much of it survives, weathered but largely intact, along Havana's seafront and in provincial towns.