In Silent Witnesses: Modernity, Colonialism, and Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier's Unfinished Plans for Havana, Joseph R. Hartman examines Havana's urbanization under the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado (in power 1925–33), focusing on the largely unrealized plans of French urbanist Forestier and his Franco-Cuban team of architects and planners. Scholars until now have focused on cataloguing the regime's extant monuments, while giving far less attention to Forestier's unbuilt urban works. The Machado regime's building campaign spoke to modern aspirations of Cuban independence and nationhood, but also to enduring colonial paradigms of race, power, and urban space. Interpreting the history of Havana's urbanization requires taking a critical view of Cuba's colonial heritage and the survival into modern times of local and imported colonialist practices. Revisiting this history lends new insights into the cultural stakes of urban restoration efforts ongoing in Havana today.
Skip Nav Destination
Close
Article navigation
September 2019
Research Article|
September 01 2019
Silent Witnesses:Modernity, Colonialism, and Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier's Unfinished Plans for Havana
Joseph R. Hartman
Joseph R. Hartman
University of Missouri-Kansas City
Joseph R. Hartman conducts research focusing on the intersections of architecture, ecology, visual culture, and politics in the Americas. He is the author of Dictator's Dreamscape: How Architecture and Vision Built Machado's Cuba and Invented Modern Havana (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019). hartmanjr@umkc.edu
Search for other works by this author on:
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2019) 78 (3): 292–311.
Citation
Joseph R. Hartman; Silent Witnesses:Modernity, Colonialism, and Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier's Unfinished Plans for Havana. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1 September 2019; 78 (3): 292–311. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2019.78.3.292
Download citation file:
Close
Sign in
Don't already have an account? Register
Client Account
You could not be signed in. Please check your email address / username and password and try again.