The architect Ileana Pérez Drago, a specialist in architectural restoration and former collaborator with the Office of the Historian of Havana, described the current state of the Cuban capital with a striking image: "The photos of Havana look like a bombed city; it seems like a war has taken place."
Pérez Drago, who currently resides in Miami and has worked on colonial restoration projects in Cuba, made these statements in an interview about the country's future urban reconstruction during a potential political transition.
The architect recounted an anecdote that illustrates the extent of the deterioration. More than 30 years ago, she brought slides of Havana to a restoration course in Italy, where another participant presented images of bombed areas in Lebanon.
The photos were practically indistinguishable. "I began my talk by saying, well, this is not the result of a war, and people started laughing because, of course, what I was showing was just like what happened in Lebanon," he recalled.
The most alarming thing, he warned, is that this happened three decades ago: "Now everything is much worse."
Pérez Drago identified Old Havana and Central Havana as the areas with the highest concentration of structural problems in the entire country, while the provinces, in his words, are «not as bad» as the capital. «There is a general collapse of the country and there is also a collapse of architecture,» he stated.
The data supports this diagnosis: in Havana, around 1,000 buildings collapse each year, the national housing deficit exceeds 900,000 units, and 35% of the existing stock is in fair or poor condition.
The architect recalled that while working on buildings in Old Havana conducting architectural surveys, the residents themselves confronted her: "Sometimes people would get a bit angry and you had to leave because so many drawings, so many drawings, and the houses are falling down around us."
One of the most pressing problems he pointed out is the resistance of the population to leave homes that are at risk of collapse.
"There has always been a reluctance to leave homes because people know that what awaits them are years in shelters," he explained.
Families trust that the structures will hold up, as they have for decades without maintenance. "It has truly withstood 67 years at times without leaking. But of course, everything has its limit, and there are many houses that haven't held up and people who have died."
That tragedy has real faces. A mother and her son died in November 2025 in the collapse of a building on Compostela Street, in Old Havana.
In August of that same year, a worker lost his life under the rubble of a collapsed roof in Centro Habana. And in January 2026, two collapses in less than 24 hours shook the streets of Muralla and Teniente Rey, also in Old Havana.
Those who manage to leave those buildings do not find dignified conditions. Evacuated families have been placed in makeshift shelters and government offices without access to basic services, which perpetuates the vicious cycle: people prefer to stay in buildings that are at risk of collapsing rather than face years in such conditions.
Pérez Drago was emphatic about the recovery outlook: "Cuba's problems are so significant that one cannot expect them to be resolved in one year or two."
The architect estimates that the complete reconstruction of the housing complex will require at least 15 years of sustained work, involving mixed teams of local and international professionals and strict regulations that do not currently exist.
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