Regla Study

Following the 2017 Hablemos de La Habana symposium, which highlighted the importance of Havana’s vernacular urban fabric, Friends of Havana supported research by the The New School in New York to study the neighborhood of Regla, located across the harbor from Old Havana. The project explored how self-built and informally modified buildings contribute to the character and resilience of Havana’s urban landscape.

The study emerged from the Havana Studio, a course in the Studley Graduate Program in International Affairs led by faculty members Michael Cohen, Anthony Tung, and Gabriel Vignoli. During a research trip to Havana in 2018, students conducted a detailed photographic survey of Regla’s streetscapes, documenting the façades and building forms of the neighborhood.

Over the course of the project, students systematically documented 116 streetscapes, producing thousands of photographs and organizing them into a database and interactive mapping system. The survey revealed that roughly half of the buildings in the study area had been expanded or improved through self-help construction, highlighting the important role that residents themselves play in shaping Havana’s built environment.

The research raised a number of questions relevant to urban planning and preservation. Should self-built architecture be understood as a legitimate and distinctive Cuban building typology? Could municipal institutions support these efforts through technical guidance, improved infrastructure, or better access to building materials?

The results of the study were presented in Havana in 2019 in collaboration with Cuban partners including the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana, Casa de las Américas, and the Universidad Tecnológica de La Habana (CUJAE). The project helped open a conversation about how informal architecture – often overlooked in preservation discussions -might instead be recognized as an important part of Havana’s evolving urban landscape.