Havana's unique and appealing spirit stems not only from the well-known quality of its music and rhythms, vibrant street life, and friendly ambience, but also from its built environment. The city showcases a harmonious juxtaposition of different architectural styles with its impressive collection of buildings by world-famous local and international architects.

By the 1920s, Havana was a Caribbean metropolis with a strong European influence. The artistic avant-garde had an enormous impact on society as a whole, and particularly on architecture, at this time. The prevailing Eclectic Style, which represented the legacy of colonialism on the island, soon shifted to Art Deco, following influences from both Europe and the United States in advance of the embrace of the International Style. A quest for national identity paralleled, and eventually merged with, these developments. In this lecture, Julio César Pérez Hernández, a Havana-based architect, describes these trends, illustrating them with photographs by Walker Evans and others.

Julio César Pérez Hernández is an internationally recognized architect, consultant, and urban planner who has won awards for the design of private and public buildings and the master plans of new communities and neighborhoods in Cuba. Recently he led a team of Cuban architects in devising a master plan for 21st-century Havana aimed at preserving the city's urban legacy, while remaining true to its people and encouraging future development. Pérez Hernández received his degree from the School of Architecture of Havana in 1982. He served as city architect of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba, for 12 years. From 2001–02 he was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He has published widely, including the recent book, Inside Cuba (Taschen, 2006).

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