Abstract
Architectural historians Victor Deupi and Jean-François Lejeune assess the legacy of the “modernist generation” of Cuban architects who were active on the island between the late 1930s and 1959. Deupi and Lejeune focus on how this generation struggled “to be modern and Cuban at the same time,” and how this tension informed their residential designs. Many Cuban architects sought to adapt modern aesthetics and building techniques to a tropical climate in their blueprints for private houses, public buildings, and urban planning. Architect Eugenio Batista codified the main elements of vernacular Cuban houses as “the three ps”—persianas (louvers), patios (courtyards), and portales (arcades)—which other architects adopted. Deupi and Lejeune have followed the professional careers of numerous Cuban architects who moved abroad after the Revolution and left a “transnational and transcultural” imprint in the built environments of their host countries, particularly the United States, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela.