Architecture is repetition: Adapting postcolonial spatial theory for post-revolutionary socialist Cuba

Abstract

This essay brings architectural theory into contact with spatial theory developed in literary and cultural studies and human geography. Arguing that the basic principles of postcolonial and Marxist spatial theories (as applied by David Harvey, Achille Mbembe, Doreen Massey, Edward Soja) require significant adaptation for a Cuban context, this essay begins to develop a new spatial theory appropriate to socialist post-revolutionary Cuba. This adapted spatial theory builds on architectural practice and theories and can be applied to Cuban literary culture: the essay briefly examines the annual Havana book fair and literary festival, Feria. An examination of social space in Havana, and its representation in texts that provide an insight into those spaces for “global” readers, needs to be alert to the ways in which the politics of space remains foregrounded in Cuba, as well as the extent to which the accommodation of policies compatible with capitalist global trade and tourism begins to replicate the inequalities of capitalist spatial configurations.