Mario Romañach excelled among the vanguard professionals of 1950s modern Cuban architecture, including Frank Martínez, Nicolás Quintana, Manuel Gutiérrez, Emilio del Junco, Joaquín Cristófol, Humberto Alonso, Nicolás Arroyo, Eduardo Montelieu, Alberto Beale, and Antonio Quintana. Although Romañach’s work is still under studied, his oeuvre constituted a model of contemporary design adapted to the material and environmental conditions of the tropic, an example soon to be followed by the new generations of Caribbean architects. On graduation from the University of Havana in 1945, Romañach designed collaboratively with Silverio Bosch until 1955, when he began to work independently. He collaborated with Antonio Quintana in the competition for the main building of the College of Architects (1943) and the Havana Regulatory Plan (1944). Afterward, Romañach, Quintana, and Pedro Martínez Inclán received the commission to design the Workers’ Neighborhood of Luyanó (Barrio Obrero de Luyanó, 1944–48), the first Cuban structure to use modern blocks for residential housing. Concurrently, he developed friendships with Walter Gropius, Richard Neutra, and José Luis Sert, who visited the School of Architecture in Havana, where Romañach was a professor from 1951 to 1952. His introverted character kept him at the margins of the student political struggles that grew in reaction to Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship (1952–58). Nonetheless, Romañach defended the progress of the Modern movement; he participated in ATEC (Tectonic Group for Contemporary Expression) and ARCA (Renovating Association of the College of Architects). Between 1945 and 1955, he designed and built 58 works including private homes, apartments, and various public buildings. Early in his career, Romañach’s houses possessed a commercial and functionalist character, fulfilling the aesthetic requirements of the traditionalist Cuban middle class. Despite its relative conservatism, the Julia Cueto de Noval House (1948) in Havana achieved a clear and volumetric organization. However, the innovative residence built for the son, José Noval Cueto (1949), was less well received. This house marked the apex of Cuban and perhaps Antillean rationalism, integrating precise compositional structure, smooth white façades, the articulation of functional spaces, and structural regularity. Organized within a rectangular box supported by beams and divided into two blocks joined by open circulation galleries (after the model of Marcel Breuer’s bipolar house) the house’s interior included a pool and a tropical garden. Thus, through a system of transparencies, double façades (real and virtual), and shaded spaces, Romañach adapted the formal models of Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, and Le Corbusier, issuing from Europe and the United States to the tropical environment. Works built in the 1950s express Romañach’s experimentation with the individual and collective dwelling and arrive at a particular type that is defined as Cuban “modern regionalism,” an elaboration of the influences of Richard Neutra and traditional Japanese architecture. The Havana house of Luis H.Vidaña (1953), the residence of Ana Carolina Font (1956), and the mansion of Rufino Álvarez (1957) mark Romañach’s maturation. In these innovative works, he designed walls of refracting colored bricks cement blocks, created a system of canopy ceilings that appear almost suspended in air, explored the use of natural wood, and achieved sophisticated spatial articulations with the organization of transparent and shaded environments. The buildings for the Territorial Company of La Sierra in Miramar (1956) and the Company for the Investment of Private Goods and Bonds (1958) display the innovative and illuminating spatial treatments found in Romañach’s apartment buildings and private homes. These effects achieve a monumental dimension in the “Las Palmas” Presidential Palace (1956) that he designed with José Luis Sert and Gabriela Menéndez for the dictator Fulgencio Batista as part of a governmental commission that also hired Wiener, Sert, and Schulz, Town Planning Associates. As Chief of the Havana Plan of the National Planning Group (1955), Romañach developed several urban projects that were never executed in La Coronela, La Habana del Este, and the proposed Satellite City of Columbia, intended to house 10,000 inhabitants. With the arrival of Fidel Castro’s government (1959), Romañach immigrated to the United States to teach at Harvard University at the invitation of Sert. He developed innumerable public and private projects in his Philadelphia office. Even though some of his works received significant prizes (such as Chatam Towers in New York City, 1967) they were lacking, along with the work of other architects who had emigrated from Cuba, the poetic depth and creativity that characterized his works in Havana.

ROBERTO SEGRE

Sennott R.S. Encyclopedia of twentieth century architecture, Vol.3. Fitzroy Dearborn., 2005.  

1917 Born in Havana (date unknown);

1943 Collaborated with Antonio Quintana for the competition for Cuban Society of Architects building;

1944 Employed by the Ministry of Public Works, Havana;

1945 Graduated from the School of Architecture, University of Havana;

1949 Received the Gold Medal from the Cuban National Society of Architects;

1951-52 Taught at the Havana School of Architecture;

1955 Became chief of the Havana Master Plan (JNP, National Planning Group), working with Eduardo Montelieu, Nicolás Quintana, Jorge Mantilla, and José Luis Sert;

1959 Visiting professor, School of Architecture at Harvard University; 1960 Immigrated to the United States with his family; established architecture practice (Perkins and Romanach) in Philadelphia;

1960-67 Associate professor, Cornell University;

1961-73 Visiting professor, Yale and Columbia Universities;

1963-84 Full professor, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia;

1971 Honorary degree, University of Pennsylvania;

1971-74 Chairman, University of Pennsylvania;

1978 Fellow, American Institute of Architects;

1980 Member, National Academy of Design;

1984 Died in Philadelphia, 3 March.

Further Reading

Carley, Rachel, Cuba. 400 Years of Architectural Heritage, New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1997

De Soto, Emilio, Album de Cuba, Volumes I–VI, Havana: Colegio de Arquitectos de Cuba, 1950–1956

Quintana, Nicolás, “Evolución histórica de la arquitectura en Cuba,” in La Enciclopedia de Cuba, edited by Vicente Báez, Volume 5, Madrid: 1/112, Playor, 1975

Rodríguez, Eduardo Luis, La Habana. Arquitectura del siglo XX, pictures by Pepe Navarro, Barcelona: Blume, 1998

Rodríguez, Eduardo Luis, “La década incógnita. Los cincuenta: modernidad, identidad y algo más,” Arquitectura Cuba (1997)

Segre, Roberto, America Latina Fim de Milênio. Raízes e Perspectivas da Sua Arquitetura, São Paulo: Studio Nobel, 1991

Segre, Roberto, Arquitectura y Urbanismo de la Revolución Cubana, Havana: Editorial Pueblo y Educación, 1995

Zequeira, Martin, María Elena, and Eduardo Luis Rodríguez, La Habana. Guía de Arquitectura, Sevilla: Junta de Andalucía, and Havana: Ciudad de La Habana, 1998

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