Modelo Brewery, Brewery building in Cotorro, Havana, Cuba

Modelo Brewery is a brewery building at the corner of 52 and Carretera Central in Cotorro, Havana, designed by Cuban architect Enrique Luis Varela and built for Compañía Ron Bacardi S.A. Its corner is a cylinder hinge between two facades: one dotted with small windows, the other almost blank and marked by horizontal bands recalling Streamline Moderne.

Built in 1946 to meet rising Cuban demand for Hatuey beer, the brewery was designed by architect Enrique Luis Varela and opened in 1948 at Cotorro, ten miles from Havana. It produced 3.5 million litres in its first nineteen months, and by 1959 output reached 10 million cases, with Hatuey holding half of Cuba's beer market. On 14 October 1960 the revolutionary government confiscated the Bacardi company's Cuban assets, including the three Hatuey breweries.

Hatuey beer, named after the Taíno chief, was the brewery's brand, and Ernest Hemingway featured it in The Old Man and the Sea (1952). When he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the company held a party for him at the Modelo Brewery, which he frequented because it stood near his home at Finca Vigía.

The building stands at the corner of 52 and Carretera Central in Cotorro, about ten miles from central Havana, so it is reached by road rather than on foot from the city. It is no longer a working brewery: the Bacardi assets, including the Hatuey breweries, were confiscated on 14 October 1960. Look for the cylindrical corner where the two facades meet.

The corner of the building is a cylinder that hinges the two facades: one side is dotted with small windows, the other is almost blank and marked by horizontal bands recalling Streamline Moderne. Hemingway, a regular at the brewery near his Finca Vigía home, had his Nobel Prize party thrown there by the company.