With the historic lifting of the Cuban embargo creating an instant rush to visit the long-cloistered island nation, a rush for rediscovery will bring all manner of Cuban art, culture and design to the fore. While it's not always acknowledged as such, Cuban architecture, especially modernist buildings, showcase an eclectic and exciting blend of styles, from the Spanish and Art Deco buildings that preceded them to the modern and Brutalist influences that came during the postwar period. As Gabriel Fuentes, Professor of Architecture at Marywood University, says, "it's a search for Cubanity, a strong regional modernism that tried to synthesize European ideals, the International style, and the Cuban context." Between Modernist residences that riff off the tropical landscape to curved concrete flourishes and large-scale Socialist construction, it's work that could only have been done in Cuba.
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