This lecture will examine the remarkable avant-garde design produced in Cuba during the first, heroic phase of the revolution and how today's politicized preservation issues are shaping the story of modernism in Cuba.

Belmont Freeman, FAIA, is the founding principal of Belmont Freeman Architects, an award-winning design firm in New York City, and an adjunct professor at Columbia University GSAPP, where he teaches a design studio within the historic preservation program. An American of Cuban descent, Mr. Freeman has done extensive research, writing and lecturing on the subject of Cuban architecture. In 2004 he co-produced, with Havana-based curator Eduardo Luis Rodríguez, the landmark exhibition “Architecture and Revolution in Cuba, 1959-1969” at Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York.