United States Embassy in Havana

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Embassy building, back, 2009
Front view, 1973 ( United States Interests Section in Havana )

The United States Embassy in Havana ( English Embassy of the United States of America in Havana , Spanish Embajada de los Estados Unidos de América en La Habana is) the diplomatic mission of the United States in Cuba's capital Havana . The six-storey building from 1950/52 is in a prominent location in the Vedado district between the Malecón coastal road in the north, the Calzada in the south and streets L in the west and M in the east. Chief of mission as chargé is Jeffrey DeLaurentis . There is currently no official ambassador .

After diplomatic relations between Cuba and the USA were broken off in 1961, Switzerland represented the interests of the USA in Cuba as a protective power . In 1977 US diplomats moved into the building again and since then has served as the seat of the interest group. On July 20, 2015, Raúl Castro and Barack Obama announced that Cuba and the US would resume diplomatic relations and open embassies in each other. The building is representative and is considered to be influential for Latin American modernism as well as for the work of renowned North American architectural offices of the 1950s.

history

Empty flagpoles of the “Monte de las Banderas”, the embassy building in the background, 2010

The American troops stationed in Cuba in the Spanish-American War in 1898 withdrew in 1901 after the Platt Amendment was passed and made the first diplomatic contacts possible after there had already been trade relations between the two countries. The first diplomatic mission was established in 1902, the first ambassador was the Canadian Herbert G. Squiers (1859–1911). From 1916 the ambassador resided in his own building in Havana, but the neighborhood there deteriorated noticeably and it was decided in 1928 to move to a more prestigious area for rent.

The present embassy building was built in 1950–52 on the Malecón coastal road . The building site was selected by the Cuban government and offered to the American embassy. The area along the Malecón was largely undeveloped at that time and was considered to be prosperous.

After the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and the break in diplomatic relations in 1963, Fidel Castro had the building confiscated. Only after the rapprochement between the two states during the presidency of Jimmy Carter was it reopened in 1977 and from then on it was the seat of the US interest group (officially: US Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Havana ). With the gradual reduction of diplomatic tensions, the importance of the diplomatic mission increased to the same extent. The Bush era initially meant a step backwards. Illuminated letters that can be seen from afar were installed on the upper floors to provide the Cuban population with news from an American perspective. In response, the Cuban side installed a forest of flagpoles with black flags ("Monte de las Banderas") in front of the building, with the purpose of obscuring the view of the writing. These flagpoles can still be seen today.

On December 17, 2014, President Barack Obama announced his intention to resume diplomatic relations with Cuba. The neon sign was turned off and the Cuban government then also removed the flags. After six months of negotiations, the two nations were able to officially renew their diplomatic relations on July 20, 2015. Embassy activities resumed on August 14th. However, there is still no official ambassador. On September 27, 2016, the outgoing President Obama proposed Jeffrey DeLaurentis as the new ambassador, the first since 1961. However, it has not been confirmed by the Congress, which is dominated by the Republican opposition .

Cuba established its advocacy group in Washington in 1917 and still holds it there.

In 2017, 21 employees of the US embassy in Cuba complained about complaints caused by loud noises in the 7000 Hertz range. Sufferers complained of dizziness , headaches , difficulty concentrating, insomnia and tinnitus between December 2016 and August 2017. Scientists from the University of Pennsylvania examined the 21 employees and published the results in the Journal of the American Medical Association ( JAMA). After that, the symptoms resemble those of a concussion. The recorded sound spectrum can be generated by feedback sounds from an ultrasound device, which do not even have to be intended, according to research at the University of Michigan.

Building

The New York architecture firm Harrison & Abramovitz , which had previously built the CIA headquarters in Langley and in 1948 the embassy building in Rio de Janeiro , was responsible for the planning and construction . The concept goes back to Oscar Niemeyer , who together with Le Corbusier had already drawn similar buildings. It embodies the brutalism prevailing at the time in the style of modernism with its concrete and glass construction . A model of this embassy building was shown in an exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art in 1953 together with the representations of Athens, Copenhagen and Stockholm, which were built at the same time, as well as many other international buildings that were considered exemplary . The Bremen consulate building and the America House in Cologne were also represented in the exhibition . The building was perceived as problematic by Cuba itself, as it stood for the outlawed, imperialist power, which with its architecture in its modernist style showed itself as a foreign body.

The house, about ten meters wide, is at right angles to the coastline and roughly in the north-south axis . This orientation makes it possible to use the sea breeze, which usually runs in a west-east direction, for air conditioning. The blue-green sun protection windows provide additional protection against the sun. However, the construction did not use cornices, sun sails or the like to provide shade. There is air conditioning in the house, without which a longer stay would not be bearable.

The building is raised by about one meter on a terrace that was originally only separated from the street by a lawn. Today there is a metal mesh fence several meters high around the terrace. The light-colored building clad in travertine is divided into a spacious ground floor with two patios designed as inner courtyards, in which information, visa matters and other consular activities for the public are housed, and into a broad section as an office tower in which the diplomatic Representation works with their base of operations for the government. On the 5th floor there is an "ambassador's balcony" facing the sea. The outer cladding came from Italy, which used it to make reparation payments for the Second World War . Behind this was the Foreign Buildings Operations program , which has an annual budget of 5.5 million US dollars , and which enabled former war veterans to use in-kind contributions to remove their debtor status.

In 1997, the house was extensively refurbished in terms of energy, which was primarily intended to improve the climate inside. The windows originally intended for tilting were replaced by rigid windows with higher thermal resistance. The back of the building received a new elevator and toilet system with a new component.

ambassador

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : US Embassy in Havana  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b A stars and stripes are blowing again over the US embassy in Cuba , Swiss radio and television, August 14, 2015
  2. ↑ a b c d e US Embassy in Havana ( Memento of the original from August 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , History  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / havana.usembassy.gov
  3. ↑ a b c Former United States Embassy, ​​Havana, Cuba , International committee for the documentation on conservation of buildings, sites, and neighborhoods of the modern movement. August 12, 2014
  4. ↑ DeLaurentis appointed first US ambassador to Cuba since 1961 , BBC, September 27, 2016 (English)
  5. ↑ Can sound be used as a weapon? 4 questions answered. March 1, 2018, accessed March 5, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Tagesschau: Like after a concussion. Retrieved February 10, 2018 .
  7. ↑ a b MoMA press release: Models of New State Department Buildings abroad at Museum of Modern Art , October 6, 1953
  8. ^ David Langdon: AD Classics: United States Embassy in Havana / Harrison & Abramovitz . ArchDaily. January 6, 2015.
  9. ^ Andrew Friedman: Covert Capital: Landscapes of Denial and the Making of US Empire in the Suburbs of Northern Virginia. University of California Press, 2013. (Eng.)

Coordinates: 23 ° 8 ′ 45 "  N , 82 ° 23 ′ 16"  W.