The Havana Archive Project: Collaboration of Hampshire College and Plan Maestro, Office of the Historian, Havana, Cuba

2012 - 2020 Project Director

Professor Jacqueline Hayden initiated the Havana Archive Project with Plan Maestro; a digital archive of the Cuban Institute of Geodesy and Cartography 1980’s photographs of the 1055 significant buildings in the Historic Center of Havana as determined by Dr. Eusabio Leal, Director of the Office of the Historian. Professor Hayden and Hampshire College alum Guillermo Ortiz-Palacios with Alina Gonzalez, Specialist in Territorial Information System at Plan Maestro, organized and directed the scanning, following the Library of Congress guidelines for file formats.

The photographers from the Cuban Institute of Geodesy and Cartography made 4,722 negatives, approximately 80% of which are 5” x 7” glass plate negatives while the remaining 20% are 5” x 7” film negatives and 4722 positive contact prints that have original measurements and notations drawn directly on them and form an integral part of the visual record of the working restoration of the old city of Havana.

Many of the negatives were deteriorating from lack of humidity-controlled storage and chemical deterioration. Some of the buildings photographed in the 1980s survey no longer exist. For example, two were demolished to build the new Russian Orthodox Church on that site.