Architecture of Hotel Camaguey in Cuba
The Camagüey hotel is a faithful exponent of the mediocre and massive architecture that arose in the decade of the 70´s, characterized by the use of prefabricated elements of scarce design quality, rigid project norms, and, also, strange; these kind of structures are known as: “Russian Buildings”.
This architecture is consequence of a group of factors that hindered and ballasted the good execution and the project quality begun in the decade of the 60´s.
- Constructive marathons to inaugurate the works in preset dates, without consulting the execution chronograms.
- The tasks organizational and productive engineers, manufacturers and distant architects of the practical project.
- These buildings were conceived far from the aesthetic principles of architecture, privileging the technical and economic aspects.
- The project autonomy of the architects was given in by strict norms settled down by the Ministry of Construction.
- The constructive components were standarized, the symbols of the social and scientific progress as well.
- Rigid planning and composition typology were defined for each of the developed topics, associated to the employment of constructive prefabricated elements. Each topic possessed its functional and technological own configuration: the industries, the schools, the housings, the hospitals, the hotels, etc.
- There was a poor presence of plastic arts from the beginning of the project, motivated by the lack of a juridical-financial mechanism that sustained it, and for the theoretical faulty aesthetic education of most of the architects.
