Sunday, January 18, 2009

Los barrios: Centro Habana
























Ruinologist Antonio José Ponte describes “estática milagrosa” or miraculous static as the phenomenon we witness in Havana of buildings that stay standing despite all of the laws of physics that would beg the contrary, supposing their crumbling. Centro Havana, otherwise known as the Casbah, is the most densely populated part of the city where this miraculous phenomenon, this human action on architecture, takes place. Here, it is clearest how population density matches up with the laws of flow and gravity. He describes Centro Habana as a battlefield where we witness the struggle between miraculous static and tugurization, the process of many citizens squatting in ruins and those with houses who create multiple floors within the decaying palaces.


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