Havana from the 33rd Floor of Cuba’s Tallest Building
Photo Feature by Ernesto Gonzalez Diaz
HAVANA TIMES – The 39-story Focsa building is the tallest in Havana and is located in the downtown Vedado district, a few meters from the malecon seafront.
The building built in the mid-1950s, became the second tallest building in the world constructed with reinforced concrete. On the 33rd floor is the La Torre bar-restaurant with a tremendous view of the city.
The Habana Libre and Nacional hotels, the United States Interests Section, the Anti-Imperialist Plaza, the Morro Castle, the Copellia Ice Cream parlor surrounded by trees, the Jose Marti memorial in Revolution Square and the Sports City Coliseum are some of the places that you can see in these images.
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The Focsa is the tallest building in Cuba
Someillan building is the tallest in Cuba located close to Focsa in the Vedado neighboardhood of Havana. Is my personal opinion.
Some interesting history to the FOCSA building:
The FOCSA Building (built 1956) is, at 121 metres high,[1] the tallest building in Cuba,[2] located in the Vedado neighborhood of Havana. It is considered one of the seven wonders of Cuban civil engineering. Its construction took about 2 years and 4 months. At completion in 1956 it was considered a national sensation due to its modern technology and it signalled the start of a wave of construction of tall buildings in Havana.
In an era when concrete construction of buildings more than 18 storeys tall was considered unaffordable, the FOCSA was only the second project of its kind in the world. The project was managed by engineer Luis Sáenz Duplace and the architect was Ernesto Gómez Sampera (1921–2004), who later moved to Puerto Rico where he worked until his death in 2004.
In the 1970s the building housed Soviet and Eastern bloc specialists and advisors and the ground store supermarket was for non-Cubans only.[5] In 2000 an elevator cable snapped killing one person. In the 2000s (decade) the building was repainted and renovated. After renovation much of the building was given over to temporarily housing foreign guest workers, primarily from Venezuela.[6]