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FOCSA Building

20th-century architecture in CubaArchitecture in HavanaBuildings and structures in HavanaResidential buildings completed in 1956
Edificio Focsa La Habana Cuba
Edificio Focsa La Habana Cuba

The FOCSA Building is a residential and commercial block in the Vedado neighborhood of Havana, Cuba. At 121 meters (397 ft), it is the tallest building in Cuba. It was named after the contracting company Fomento de Obras y Construcciones, Sociedad Anónima, and the architects were Ernesto Gómez Sampera (1921–2004), Mercedes Diaz (his wife), and Martín Domínguez Esteban (1897-1970), who was the architect of the Radiocentro CMQ Building. The structural engineer was Luis Sáenz Duplace, of the firm Sáenz, Cancio & Martín, and professor of engineering at the University of Havana. The civil engineers were Bartolome Bestard and Manuel Padron. Gustavo Becquer and Fernando H.Meneses were the mechanical and electrical engineers, respectively. It is located on a site bordered by Calles 17 and M and Calles 19 and N in the Vedado.

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FOCSA Building
Calle 17,

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Latitude Longitude
N 23.142888888889 ° E -82.384083333333 °
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Focsa

Calle 17 55
10400 (Rampa)
Havana, Cuba
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Edificio Focsa La Habana Cuba
Edificio Focsa La Habana Cuba
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Edificio del Seguro Médico, Havana
Edificio del Seguro Médico, Havana

The Edificio del Seguro Médico is a commercial building in El Vedado, Havana. [1] Built between 1955 and 1958, it was designed as a mixed use building for apartments and offices for the headquarters of the National Medical Insurance Company by Antonio Quintana Simonetti. In regards to Edificio del Seguro Médico an architect from the Universidad de Oriente, Santiago de Cuba, Carlos Alberto Odio Soto made the following observation: "Within the modern heritage architecture of the 50s, there is the Medical Insurance Building, work designed by the architect Antonio Quintana in 1955. This work was praised even before its inauguration by the prestigious Professor Pedro Martínez Inclán on the occasion of the delivery of the First Prize to the Project where he proposed that Quintana, when he managed to carry out his project, could blazon of having endowed Havana, according to the famous sentence of Paul Valery, "of a building that speaks." At the national level, Quintana received the recognition of the main specialized publications that circulated in the country at that time: Architecture, Space, Cuba Album, etc .; at the same time is diffused internationally through the book Latin American Architecture since 1945, published by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Exhibition of Modern Cuban Architecture held in the city itself by the Architectural League of New York. Almost at the end of the 50s, he receives two distinctions: in 1959 the Gold Medal Award of the National College of Architects and the condition of best commercial work of this period." Today the building houses the Cuban Ministry of Public Health and the Prensa Latina Agency. The only complete package of information about the building is the slides that were presented for the architectural contest, collected in the magazine 'Arquitectura', nº 269, of 1955 published by the College of Architects of Havana.

Embassy of the United States, Havana
Embassy of the United States, Havana

The Embassy of the United States of America in Havana (Spanish: Embajada de los Estados Unidos de América, La Habana) is the United States of America's diplomatic mission in Cuba. On January 3, 1961, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower severed relations following the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s. In 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Cuban leader Fidel Castro signed an Interests Sections Agreement that permitted each government to operate from its former embassy in Havana and Washington D.C., which were called Interests Sections; they were prohibited from flying their respective flags. Cuban President Raúl Castro and U.S. President Barack Obama restored full diplomatic connections on July 20, 2015.The building housed the United States Interests Section in Havana between 1977 and 2015, which operated under the auspices of the Swiss Embassy (acting as protecting power). On July 1, 2015, it was announced that with the resumption of diplomatic ties, the building resumed its role as the U.S. Embassy in Cuba on July 20, 2015.After the emergence of Havana syndrome in 2017, the United States withdrew most of the personnel from the embassy, so by July 2018 only 10 American diplomats were left to maintain the diplomatic service. The reduction of staffing also resulted in declining availability of embassy services. The Biden Administration plans on expanding staff at the embassy to resume full scale processing of immigrant visa services beginning in early 2023. The embassy is led by Chargé d'Affaires Benjamin G. Ziff.