Typology	Shared Architectures
Program	Public Space
Location	CU Havana
Year	2025
Status	In Progress
Size in sqm	5 000
Selection Process	Direct Commission
Partner Office	grupo FINCA
Photo Credits	Jose A. Abreu

Cine REX

: Theatre de la Citta

The Rex is an emblematic building in Havana, abandoned for several decades, but still deeply inscribed in the urban memory of the city.

Our proposal for its reconstruction and reprogramming is born from a precise and patient observation of the place. It all began with a process of meticulous documentation: redrawing the original plans, a 3D scan of the building, and a photographic essay carried out with photographer Joe Abreu.

From this documentation, a particular reading of the Rex emerged. More than an isolated architectural object, we understand the Rex as a continuity of the city inside a building block, a kind of interior “urban void,” similar to what the Nolli map of Rome reveals. That is, the Rex should be considered a portion of the city: a fragment that, even if it has doors, schedules, or limits, belongs to the collective life and the public experience of Havana.

Based on this interpretation, the project proposes to reimagine the two main spaces of the Rex as an urban duality: on one side, a plaza (square), an open and mineral space that extends the street indoors; on the other, a garden, a more intimate and vegetal space that invites pause and contemplation.

This tension between the plaza and the garden not only organizes the project but also redefines the essence of the Rex as a microcosm of the city, a place where the public and the domestic, the built and the natural, the old and the contemporary, coexist and mutually reactivate.

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