Rosita De Hornedo Building
Map
General information
TypeResidential
Architectural styleModern
LocationMiramar
AddressCorner of O, Playa
Town or city Ciudad de La Habana
CountryCuba Cuba
Coordinates23°07′55″N 82°24′57″W / 23.1319°N 82.4158°W / 23.1319; -82.4158
Elevation.
Design and construction
Architect(s)Cristobal Martinez Marques

The hotel Rosita De Hornedo was one of the first major buildings to built by a private developer in the 1950s and the result of legislation encouraging torusrism. It is located in the Puntilla area of Miramar.[1]

History

In 1957, the residential hotel Rosita de Hornedo, owned by the liberal senator Alfredo Hornedo y Suárez, who also owned the El País and Excélsior newspapers, and the Mercado Único of La Habana. He named the building of 172 apartments and two pent-houses with the name of his second wife, Rosita Almanza, and had her build nearby other properties in the area: the Blanquita theater, now Karl Marx, and the Sports Casino spa, today social circle Cristino Naranjo.[2]

Attack of the Rosita De Hornedo

In August 1962, a group part of the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE) militants, went to Cuba from Miami in a small boat and attacked the Rosita de Hornedo hotel which known after the revolution as the Hotel Sierra Maestra. They attacked the hotel with a canon, terrorized the guests of the Hotel, and fled back to the United States. Among the DRE militants who attacked the hotel that night was José Basulto.[3][a] Since the Cuban Revolution, Basulto participated in various activities intended to subvert or overthrow the Cuban government. After the revolution, he was trained by the CIA in intelligence, communications, explosives, sabotage and subversion in Panama, Guatemala, and the United States. He was later placed back into Cuba, posing as a physics student at the University of Santiago to help prepare the ground for the Bay of Pigs Invasion. In 1961, under CIA sponsorship, Basulto infiltrated Cuba for a commando operation intended to sabotage an alleged missile site, a mission which was ultimately aborted. In August 1962 he was involved in an expedition of the Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil which took a boat to Cuba and fired a 20 mm cannon at the Rosita De Hornedo hotel, though nobody was killed in the incident.

Architecture

The formal design of the Rosita De Hornedo building seems to have been inspired by the expresiomist work of Erich Mendelsohn (21 March 1887 – 15 September 1953)[5] who was a German architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas. Mendelsohn is a pioneer of the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne architecture, notably with his 1921 Mossehaus design.[1]

Notes

  1. ^ " That is my best friend, Manuel Guillot Castellanos. He was the chief of the underground network in Cuba. He was arrested after the Bay of Pigs." Basulto shows me a souvenir of the attack on the Hornedo de Rosita Hotel: an eight-inch cannon shell, the only one that he didn't fire that night so long ago. Basulto's wife, Rita, arrives with their newest grandson, Rogelio, who is barely a year old. Basulto puts the bullet down and plucks the babe from his stroller, hugging him, cooing over him, murmuring endearments. "This is my treasure," he says. Basulto wants to say one more thing. It concerns his attack on the Hornedo de Rosita Hotel 35 years ago. "Did you know that a few weeks after we hit the hotel," Basulto says, "Castro sent Guillot, my best friend, to the firing squad. In revenge for our attack. "You think I don't have a burden?" he asks. The truth is that Jose Basulto has a lot of dead friends. Jefferson Morley is an editor in The Post's Outlook section. CAPTION: Jose Basulto, a co-founder of the Miami-based pilots organization Brothers to the Rescue, has campaigned against Fidel Castro's communist regime since coming to the United States in 1959. CAPTION: Brothers to the Rescue traces its roots to the early '60s. Counterclockwise from right: Brigade 2506, an exile army sponsored by the CIA; Juan Salvat, left, and Basulto in August 1962; a satirical anti-Castro publication; an as-told-to Miami Herald article by Basulto; and Felix Rodriguez, a friend of Basulto's who served with him in the U.S. Army. CAPTION: Brothers to the Rescue, or Hermanos al Rescate, was all but put out of business by a U.S. immigration deal with Cuba in 1995, but Basulto, left, continued his anti-Castro flights. Opposite page, top to bottom: a memorial to the four pilots killed in the 1996 shootdown; an oil painting depicting a friend of Basulto's who was executed in 1962; and a recovered raft."[4]

References

  1. ^ a b The Havana Guide: Modern Architecture 1925-1965 By Eduardo Luis Rodriguez, Eduardo Luis Rodríguez, Eduardo Luis Rodríguez Fernández. Princeton Architectural Press. Copyright.
  2. ^ "Historia de los hoteles más famosos de la Habana". Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  3. ^ "Hotel Rosita de Hornedo". Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  4. ^ "SHOOT DOWN By Jefferson Morley May 25, 1997". Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  5. ^ "Erich Mendelsohn". Retrieved January 15, 2012. ((cite web)): Unknown parameter |encyclopedia= ignored (help)
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