Havana: Two faces of the Antil­lean Metropolis

September 27, 2002 - 4:00 PM

Co-author Joseph L. Scarpaci meets crit­ics Jill Ham­berg, Empire State Col­lege, and Thomas Angotti.

This event marks the pub­li­ca­tion of the sec­ond, revised edi­tion of “Havana: Two Faces of the Antil­lean Metrop­o­lis,” (New York: John Wiley & Sons) by Joseph L. Scarpaci, Roberto Segre, and Mario Coyula.

Awards:
A 1998 Choice Out­stand­ing Aca­d­e­mic Book

One of the old­est and most cel­e­brates cities in the west­ern hemi­sphere, Havana is a fas­ci­nat­ing metrop­o­lis where his­tory has left its hand­print on every cor­ner. Here, an inter­na­tional trio of well-know archi­tects and plan­ners assesses nearly five hun­dred years of devel­op­ment in the Cuban cap­i­tal. They offer an insight­ful intro­duc­tion to Havana’s his­toric archi­tec­ture and mod­ern build­ings, its social and eco­nomic fab­ric, its diverse peo­ple, and its con­tem­po­rary chal­lenges and opportunities.

From the colo­nial and early repub­li­can peri­ods, through the 1959 rev­o­lu­tion, and into the post-Soviet era and today, the authors trace Havana’s phys­i­cal evo­lu­tion and place it in the con­text of impor­tant polit­i­cal, eco­nomic, and cul­tural devel­op­ments. This new edition–which has been com­pletely revised, redesigned, and updated since the book’s orig­i­nal pub­li­ca­tion in 1997– also high­lights recent restora­tion efforts in Old Havana, com­mer­cial devel­op­ment projects through­out the city, and the wide-ranging effects of the inter­na­tional tourism.