• Submitted by: Luis Manuel Mazorra
• Society
• 09 / 30 / 2014

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Norman Foster, the British architect, winner of the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts in 2009 and awarded the Pritzker in 1999, attended the launch of “Havana. Cars and Architecture” at the Hay Festival in Segovia.

The book, written by journalist Mauricio Vicent, is inspired by Foster’s trips to Havana and his fascination with architecture and the country's relationship with classic cars.

According to Foster, the Cuban architecture of the 40s and 50s is a reflection of the desire to live in that society, which contributes to the identity of today's society, as evidenced by the resurgence of the architecture of that time and the greatest interest in it. Foster has the opinion that happen the same with vehicles.

"This is unique, does not exist anywhere in the world," Norman Foster noted, fascinated by the spectacle that still offer those antiquated cars that populate the Cuban capital, restored again and again "because there is no alternative" and recycled to get to pretend they are not.

Between chaos and perfection, Foster has expressed entranced by another of the contradictions that exist on the island, where the last car, with spare parts, entered in the 60s.

According to Vincent, there are in Cuba more than 200,000 cars, a third of which are old. The "amazing" ingenuity of Cubans arriving in craft manufacture parts in lathes, allowed to keep and even provided that in these hard times of the crisis the country continue to function, as they served as public transport.
 
Source: OnCuba