Hello friends of this beautiful community of Hive, today I want to share with you an experience I had last Wednesday when I was looking for gifts for Christmas, the truth is that I have not had enough time for work and had not been able to go shopping so I decided to take the day for that.
The surprising thing is that while I was looking for gift stores I had the opportunity to walk around different places in Havana, appreciating the architecture of several buildings that in one way or another are recognized for their history and frequently visited.
I want to share some of them with you starting with the José Martí memorial located in the Plaza de la Revolución. It is a star-shaped tower, presided by a statue of Martí surrounded by six columns and gardens, the tower was designed by a team of architects and covered in gray marble. From the viewpoint of the Monument at 129 meters above sea level located 10 meters from the top and considered the highest point of the city (surpassing the 62 meters of the Capitol dome) opens a panoramic view of Havana up to 50 km.
Continuing my search, I arrived near the Malecon where I could observe the majesty of one of Havana's recently inaugurated hotels, the Gran Aston, considered a refuge of elegant and contemporary sophistication, which takes modern lifestyle to another level, revealing a unique architectural design that towers over the legendary Havana Malecon.
After walking for an hour I arrived at one of the most central and famous places in Havana, the Vedado where there are different buildings that make this place a tourist attraction that is not overlooked, say the Hotel Tryp Habana Libre which was built as Habana Hilton with a budget of 24 million dollars being operated by the U.S. chain Hilton Hotels, was designed by the renowned Los Angeles architect Welton Becket, who had previously designed the Beverly Hilton for the U.S. chain. Among the highlights of the work was the restoration of a huge original mural by artist Amelia Pelaez above the main entrance, which had spent decades hidden from public view.
We can also mention another building that impresses mainly for its view, we talk about the Focsa building considered one of the seven wonders of Cuban civil engineering, its completion aroused sensation in the Cuban population for its technological novelty and marked the beginning of the era of Havana tall buildings, it was consolidated as the second tallest concrete construction in the world, being the Martinelli Building in Sao Paulo, the first. It was conceived as a small city, self-sufficient, inside another city and it is still a building where the concepts of sun, light and ventilation have full importance, with 36 floors, it is 121 meters high, and is based on Le Corbusier's ideas of an autonomous structure inside a city in the shape of a y, with its famous restaurant bar La Torre at the top, both for its food and for the amazing view.
Another building that I could not fail to share is the imposing Torre K, still under construction, will be a 42-story hotel with 565 rooms, located on 23rd Street and K, considered the highest in Havana, with an approximate height of 154 meters above sea level, from its formal conception volumetry, image and expression makes a little reference to contemporary architecture and Cuban architecture more valued internationally.
Having finished my tour and with only a few gifts left to buy, I arrived at the historic center of the city where the most striking and famous building stands: the Capitol of Havana, built in 1929. Inspired by the Pantheon in Paris, St. Paul in London and the Capitol of the United States, the building has a neoclassical colonnaded facade and a dome that reaches 91.73 m in height, is the kilometer origin of the Cuban road network, one of the most visited tourist centers of the city, having become one of the architectural icons of Havana, is named by some experts as one of the six most important palaces in the world and its dome, with a height of 92 m, was one of the six most important palaces in the world, of a height of 92 m, was at the time the fifth highest in the world with a diameter of 32 m counting with 16 nerves among which stand out the honeycombs covered with sheets of 22 carat gold, the most attractive of your visit is the breathtaking view that shows both day and night and more if you have the pleasure of admiring it from the viewpoint bar of the Hotel Gran Manzana Kempiski being this my Christmas gift after such an exciting day. I hope you like the view as much as I do although through the lens the look is usually different.
Translated with Deepl
All images were taken with my Samsung Galaxy A71.