Towering Tropicality: Liberating the Habana Hilton

• In Event: Latin American Hotels: Visions of Modernity, Spaces of Negotiation

Abstract

Designed by U.S. architect Welton Becket in collaboration with Cuban architects Lin Arroyo and Gabriela Menéndez, the Habana Hilton opened to much fanfare in March 1958. The tallest hotel in Latin America at the time of its opening, the coral blue and white 27-story tower became a powerful symbol and unique model of state and corporate enterprise. Owned by the Gastronomical and Service Workers’ Union and developed in alliance with the Batista government, efforts to keep mafia money outside the coffers of the hotel’s various endeavors illustrates how the Habana Hilton became a model of benevolent capitalism. This paper traces the narrative of the Habana Hilton, from its development in the 1950s to its symbolic appropriation following the 1959 Cuban Revolution. The young hotel’s unique legacy and iconic stature within the urban network of Havana made it a site ripe for revolutionary takeover and eventual expropriation. While guerillas would claim the hotel upon entering the city of Havana on January 1st, 1959, revolutionary leaders such as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara would claim its presidential suites as their temporary homes during the first year of the revolution. My paper argues that the revolution and its leaders symbolically appropriated the “topicality” of the 1950s era hotel, as they attempted to redefine the use of an elite tourist space in relation to state interests.

Author

• Fredo Rivera, Duke University