US-CUBA COOPERATION ON SUSTAINABLE BUILDING RESTORATION IN OLD HAVANA:
In June 2019 a delegation of two GSAPP faculty members and ten graduate students in architecture, urban planning, and historic preservation spent a week in Havana meeting local professionals, visiting a number of building restoration sites, and participating in a full-day workshop with representatives from the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana and the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation for Man and Nature, focused on the conversion of a historic building in Old Havana into a new environmental education center. Consistent with the Foundation’s mission, FANJ wishes to make their building renovation a showcase for the best practices of environmental sustainability in historic preservation, and to this end reached out to Columbia for conceptual and technical collaboration. Professors Belmont Freeman and Michael Adlerstein will talk about the FANJ workshop, as well as a broader look at building conservation and new construction in Havana, as the city approaches its 500th Anniversary.
