Wikipedia

Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski La Habana

The Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski La Habana is a luxury hotel in Havana, Cuba. It is located in the historic Manzana de Gómez building, an early-20th-century building that was Cuba's first shopping mall. The Kempinski Hotel chain, belongs to the oldest hotel groups in Europe, Kempinski Aktiengesellschaft.[2]

Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski La Habana
Map
Hotel chainKempinski Hotels
General information
LocationHavana, Cuba
AddressCalle San Rafael
Opening2017
OwnerCuban government (contested)[a]
ManagementKempinski Hotels
Technical details
Floor count5
Design and construction
Architect(s)Don Pedro Tomé y Veracruisse
DeveloperAndrés Gómez Mena
Other information
Number of rooms246
Number of suites50
Website
Official website

History

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Manzana de Gomez was first shopping arcade in Havana

Don Julián de Zulueta initially built the building up to the first floor dedicated to commercial shops. There was a large basement the architect took advantage of part of the city wall's moats and foundations which were prepared to receive several more floors.[b] In 1873 it was the first commercial complex in Havana to resemble those in European cities built within the city walls of Havana Vieja on the Calzada de Monte between Prado and Zulueta. It was a modest set of 12 porticoed commercial establishments of a single floor united by a common front.[3]

The building on a plot bounded by Calles Neptuno, San Rafael, Monserrate y Zulueta was designed by the architect Don Pedro Tomé y Veracruisse, construction began in 1890. While the building was still unfinished, Don Julián de Zuluetawas sold it to Andrés Gómez Mena who came to Cuba from Spain and completed the first floor. Designed around interior passageways that ensured natural light and ventilation, four floors were added from 1916 to 1918. The ground floor was surrounded on all four sides by covered galleries, the inner passageways of two interior diagonal streets,[1] forming an 'X' on the plan,[2] were integrated with the exterior galleries.[citation needed] The upper floors contained law firms and business offices. Gomez built two theaters, the Politeama Grande and the Politeama Pequeño, which had a short-existence.[4] Andrés Gómez Mena was shot to death in Havana, on January 11, 1917, by the Catalan watchmaker Fernando Reugart, who argued that Gómez Mena had disrespected his wife.[5] Since its early days in 1832, the most popular commercial stores were directly located on the streets of Calles Muralla and Oficios, along with other arteries, such as Monte, Neptuno, San Rafael, and Galiano. The building until 1918 occupied one floor with covered galleries, four levels were eventually added, eight elevators to facilitate access to those floors. It had 560 offices, the Pitman commercial academies were located on the second level, and for students seeking to prepare in shorthand and typing methods. There was the Ibero-American Institution of Culture chaired by the Cuban scholar Fernando Ortiz, as well as consular and diplomatic agencies. The Manzana de Gomez at one point held over 500 offices. It was estimated that 25,000 people visited daily.[6]

Architecture

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Corner of la Manzana de Gomez, c. 1955

The decoration of its four facades, columns, jambs, arch keys, corbels, friezes, balconies, and other decorative elements is mostly carved stone.[3] The main access to the building was located on Zulueta Street, with highly ornate details including a flagpole with the national insignia. The entrances to the building had wide marble staircases and a double system of elevators, the access to the commercial passages, in the form of a cross in plan, was located in the four chamfered corners. The metal gates, in addition to functioning as a closing element for the galleries, become a decorative element, presumably, placed in the last stage of rebuilding between 1916 and 1920.[7]

José Gómez-Mena

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The owner of the Manzana de Gómez, José Gómez-Mena (1883 – 1960), is identified as one of the richest men in Cuba.[c] Gómez Mena is synonymous with opulence and power, he raised a fortune through the slave and the clandestine trade, his descendants achieved large fortunes as merchants, landowners, and bankers. Gómez Mena had large tracts of land, no less than 500 houses, and apartment buildings, four sugar mills, works of art, and objects of all kinds, such as statues and monuments, and paintings of great value. His house is currently the Museum of Decorative Arts. His assets are calculated for an average of 20 million pesos, a whole fortune equivalent to hundreds of millions in our day.

Arcade

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Main article: Covered passages of Paris
 
Manzana de Gomez, interior passageway
 
View of an arcade (the passage Choiseul, located in the second arrondissement of Paris), as an example of the characteristic architecture of the covered arcades of 19th-century Paris.

The structure built from 1894 to 1917[10] was the first European-style shopping arcade in Cuba.[4] In certain respects, it recalled the Covered passages of Paris,[d] The Covered Passage of Paris (French: Passages couverts de Paris) are an early form of shopping arcade built in Paris, France primarily during the first half of the 19th century. By the 1850s there were approximately 150 covered passages in Paris but this decreased greatly as a result of Haussmann's renovation of Paris. Only a couple of dozen passages remain in the 21st century, all on the Right Bank. The common characteristics of the covered passages are that they are: pedestrianized; glass-ceilings; artificially illuminated at night (initially with gas lamps); privately owned; highly ornamented and decorated; lined with small shops on the ground floor; connecting two streets. Originally, to keep the passages clean, each would have an artiste de décrottage (a shit-removal artist) at the entrance to clean the shoes of visitors. The Paris passages were the subject of Walter Benjamin's incomplete magnum-opus Passagenwerk (Arcades Project) which was posthumously published.[12]

The Manzana de Gómez was the first entire city block built in Cuba at the beginning of the 20th century completely for commercial use,[5] with two inner diagonal passageways forming an 'X' pattern on the plan [6] integrating the pedestrian circulation with the outer fabric. It is bounded by Neptuno, San Rafael, Zulueta, and Monserrate streets.

Conversion

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The structure was gutted and converted to a 246-room hotel by the Gaviota Group,[13] an arm of the Cuban military.[14] The hotel, operated by Kempinski Hotels, opened for business in May 2017[15][16] and celebrated its grand opening in June 2017.[13] The hotel features a ground floor shopping mall, with retail franchises including Versace, Giorgio Armani, Lacoste and Montblanc,[16] harking back to the building's origins.[17]

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  •  
    Building owned by Don Julián de Zulueta, designed by the architect Don Pedro Tomé y Veracruisse, that became La Manzana de Gomez
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    Zabala Store, Interior passageway Manzana de Gomez Building, Havana, Cuba
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    Original passageway, Manzana Gomez, c. 2003
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    Central Park, Plaza Hotel and Gomez Building, Havana, Cuba
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    Manzana de Gomez by Albear Park
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    Manzana de Gómez, c. 1920
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    Manzana de Gómez, 2003

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ This theft of private property led the U.S. into severing diplomatic relations in 1961 and installing the trade embargo and various sanctions against Cuba. "Thousands of Americans and Cuban citizens suffered humiliation and financial distresses of having their private property stolen from them, some of them at gunpoint. Today there has been no justice for that their claims."[1]
  2. ^ City walls demolished in 1863.
  3. ^ He was born in 1883,[8] the son of Andrés Gómez-Mena, who came to Cuba from Spain, and Eugenia Carlota Tomasa Vila-Perez.[9]
  4. ^ Passagenwerk or Arcades Project was an unfinished project of German philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin, written between 1927 and 1940. An enormous collection of writings on the city life of Paris in the 19th century, it was especially concerned with Paris' iron-and-glass covered "arcades" (known in French as the passages couverts de Paris). "Benjamin's Project, which many scholars[11] believe might have become one of the great texts of 20th-century cultural criticism, was never completed due to his suicide on the French-Spanish border in 1940. The Arcades Project has been posthumously edited and published in many languages as a collection of unfinished reflections. The work is mainly written in German, yet also contains French-language passages, mainly quotes. (French: Passages couverts de Paris) and are an early form of shopping arcade built in Paris, France primarily during the first half of the 19th century. By the 1850s there were approximately 150 covered passages in Paris but this decreased greatly as a result of Haussmann's renovation of Paris. Only a couple of dozen passages remain in the 21st century, all on the Right Bank. The common characteristics of the covered passages are that they are: pedestrianized; glass-ceilings; artificially illuminated at night (initially with gas lamps); privately owned; highly ornamented and decorated; lined with small shops on the ground floor; connecting two streets. Originally, to keep the passages clean, each would have an artiste de décrottage (a shit-removal artist) at the entrance to clean the shoes of visitors. The passages were the subject of Walter Benjamin's incomplete magnum-opus Pasagenwerk (Arcades Project) which was posthumously published."

References

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  1. ^ "HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE of the COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION". Retrieved 2020-02-25.
  2. ^ "Kempinski contará con un segundo hotel en La Habana". Retrieved 2021-12-04.
  3. ^ "La Manzana de Gomez, Habana". Retrieved 2021-12-08.
  4. ^ "Manzana de Gómez". Retrieved 2021-12-07.
  5. ^ "Andrés Gómez y Mena. El "Rey del azúcar"". Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  6. ^ "La Manzana ¿de Gómez o de Kempinski?". Retrieved 2021-12-05.
  7. ^ "La Manzana de Gómez V". Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  8. ^ "Jose "Pepe" Gomez-Mena". Find A Grave. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  9. ^ Boobbyer, Claire (12 March 2013). "A spotlight on Havana's art deco heritage – in pictures". the Guardian. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
  10. ^ Leopoldo Fornés Bonavía (2003). Cuba, cronología: cinco siglos de historia, política y cultura (in Spanish). Madrid: Editorial Verbum [es]. ISBN 978-84-7962-248-0. [es]&rft.date=2003&rft.isbn=978-84-7962-248-0&rft.au=Leopoldo Fornés Bonavía&rft_id=https://books.google.com/books?id=lJduKDMU8pcC&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski La Habana" class="Z3988">
  11. ^ Agamben, Giorgio (1993). Stanzas. Minneapolis: Uni. go Minnesota Press. pp. xvii.
  12. ^ Benjamin, Walter (1999). The arcades project. Rolf Tiedemann. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press. ISBN 0-674-04326-X. OCLC 41176710.
  13. ^ a b "Luxury Kempinski Hotel Opens its Doors in Havana - Cuba". M. Shanken Communications.
  14. ^ "Kempinski to Manage the Manzana Hotel in 2016". Cuba Business Report.
  15. ^ "Kempinski Press Room". kempinski.com. Retrieved 2017-06-19.
  16. ^ a b "Super Luxury Hotel Opens in Havana, Cuba - Havana Times.org". Havana Times. 23 May 2017.
  17. ^ "Cuba's first luxury hotel opens in Havana | DW | 23.05.2017".

Sources

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  • Cuba - Eyewitness Travel Guides (Dorling Kindersley Publishing, 2004) ISBN 075660172X
  • Havana (Lonely Planet Publications, 2001) ISBN 1864502290
  • The Odyssey Illustrated Guide To Cuba (Guidebook Company Ltd., 1995) ISBN 9622173705
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