Havana ca. 1958, in a photograph by Sert (above); Havana ca. 1999, in a photograph by Reinerio Faife (below). These photos will be part of an exhibition, "Havana Revisited: An Architect's Point of View," next week at the GSD.

Cuban native and student at the Graduate School of Design Reinerio P. Faife recently visited his birthplace for the first time in many years. He returned with provocative thoughts and powerful images.

Almost two decades ago -- on May 20, 1980 -- I left Havana, Cuba, with my family to start a new life in the United States.

The ensuing process of personal and professional fulfillment has culminated in what I now consider the most important ingredient in the making of the complete self: the reclamation of my cultural roots. Nineteen years ago I forced myself to forget the past in order to allow my soul to start over. Not long ago, I was finally ready to revisit and reclaim this same past.

Recently, as part of an ongoing thesis proposal presented in connection with my master's degree in the architecture program at the Graduate School of Design, I was able to go back to Havana, coming full circle in my personal journey.

Havana is a beautiful city that has for the past 40 years been viewed by many as a gloomy and desolate symbol. In 1982, however, Old Havana's international, historical, and archaeological value was recognized by UNESCO when it designated the capital a "World Heritage Site."

Until recently, the political regime in Cuba has provided the country with an unanticipated benefit; ironically, political stagnation has made Havana a refuge from the unchecked urban expansion that ravages other Latin American capitals. Havana not only continues to be a "traditional city," a place with a rich physical and social context worthy of careful restoration and preservation, but continues to be a "living city" as well, a city of cultural endurance.

An exhibition of photographs that I took during two recent visits to Cuba -- in August 1998 and February 1999 -- serves as my personal commemorative gesture to the great capital. The exhibition is called "Havana Revisited: An Architect's Point of View" and will be on display next week -- April 12-17 -- at the Graduate School of Design. The exhibit will portray the city, past and present. The photography of José Luis Sert, architect and dean of the GSD from 1953 to 1969, will be juxtaposed with mine. Sert's work provides views of the Havana of the past. (The black and white photos were part of a master plan proposal made for Havana by Sert in 1959.)

My images present a contemporary version of that city, a city that from a distance is commonly understood as being frozen in time -- a common misapprehension caused by the lack of superficial change, architectural and urban.

-- Reinerio P. Faife is a student in the architecture program at the Graduate School of Design and expects to graduate this spring.