Colegio Nacional de Arquitectos de Cuba, Art Deco office building in Havana, Cuba.
The Colegio Nacional de Arquitectos de Cuba is an Art Deco office building located at the corner of Infanta and Humboldt streets in Havana. Its walls are constructed from coral stone and finished with green Cuban marble, while a central spiral staircase with glass block panels connects the three levels that contain offices, a library, and recreation areas.
Construction began in 1944 under architects Mario Esquiroz and Fernando de Zárraga and reached completion in 1947. The building officially opened in January 1948, marking an important moment in Cuban architectural practice.
The Colegio Nacional de Arquitectos de Cuba was founded in Havana on 13 March 1916, after legislation required architects to be licensed. Its annual architecture prize, awarded from the late 1940s, went to works such as Max Borges Jr.'s Tropicana Club in 1953 and Antonio Quintana Simonetti's Edificio del Seguro Médico in 1959.
The building stands at the corner of Infanta and Humboldt streets, where the curved wall with the round metal seal faces the street and a blue parking sign marks the entrance side. The ground-floor entrance sits under a broad concrete canopy, and the green marble panels and openwork screen of the central facade are best read from the opposite pavement.
The round metal seal on the curved right-hand wall reads "COLEGIO NACIONAL DE ARQUITECTOS", the name of the institution founded in Havana on 13 March 1916. Decree-Law No. 3174 of 13 December 1933 turned the Havana college into a national body with six provincial headquarters, and by 31 December 1958 it counted 676 licensed architects, 590 of them in Havana.
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