Museum of the Revolution (Havana)

Brief Information

The Museum of the Revolution occupies Havana’s former Presidential Palace, and this immediately changes the meaning of the building: the place where Cuba’s leaders worked from 1920 to 1959 became, after the revolution, a museum about a turning point in Cuban history. So the palace shell here is not a backdrop for the exhibition, but part of the story: power was first located within these walls, and then itself became an object on display.

The building was designed by Carlos Maruri and Paul Belau, who added elements of neoclassicism to its appearance. This fact matters not as a name in a reference book, but as a clue to reading the facade: the museum is located not in a neutral exhibition building, but in a representative palace. The collections are devoted to Cuban history, especially the events of the 1950s and 1960s, but the pre-revolutionary theme also remains close by precisely because the building itself comes from an earlier political era.

What to notice right away

It makes sense to compare the main building with the objects around it: here, history is brought not only into the halls, but also into the space in front of the facade and behind the palace. Behind the building stands a large glass pavilion with the yacht Granma, the vessel on which Fidel Castro and his supporters crossed from Mexico to Cuba. The glass shell turns the yacht into a separate visible center of the museum, not simply one exhibit among others.

Around the Granma are missiles connected with the American Lockheed U-2 shot down during the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as engines from that aircraft. In front of the facade stands a Soviet SU-100 self-propelled artillery gun, and nearby the remains of Havana’s city wall are mentioned. These details are worth reading together: the palace shows former state power, the yacht the beginning of the revolutionary path, the military equipment an era of conflict, and the wall fragments remind us that the museum stands in a historic city, not in an isolated memorial.