Cienfuegos: a unique city after 203 years

If good things are handmade, then Cienfuegos classifies as such because it was thought, reasoned and created by those who founded and named it Fernandina de Jagua on April 22, 1819, under the guidance of Luis de Clouet y Favrot, a native of Louisiana.
According to architect Iran Millán Cuétara, director of the City Conservator's Office, the first thing that stands out is that it is the only city established by French settlers in the 19th century—while Cuba was under Spanish rule—who influenced not only local life and architectural styles but also the colors of the local flag.

For this enthusiast, the provincial capital of Cienfuegos has a halo of imperceptible magic that seduces everyone. Since its birth, Fernandina de Jagua embraced the most enlightened city planning principles of the time, so much so that its elegant neoclassical layout stands as an exceptional exponent of colonial urbanism, as is the monumental richness of its typical buildings, compounds and public spaces, Millán Cuétara explained, highlighting significant sites such as the old Arms Square and the Prado Promenade.

Plenty of reasons bear witness to his assertions, ranging from the good condition of houses and public buildings to the formal stylistic integrity of the original typologies used for the first constructions.

Ten years after its foundation, the colony was granted villa status and that of a city in 1880, but other dates would mark its future development, such as its declaration as National Monument in 1995 and that of its old section as Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005, when the group of experts gathered in Durban, South Africa, on July 15, 2005 justified their choice by saying that Cienfuegos "shows an important mélange of influences from the Spanish Enlightenment and is an exceptional and advanced example of its implementation in urban planning in nineteen-century Latin America ".

They also called it "the first and exceptional example of an architectural ensemble representative of the new ideas of modernity, hygiene and order, in the urban planning developed in this continent and becomes a modern emporium that breaks with the reigning trilogy of square, church and town hall”.

Another of Cienfuegos’s exceptional qualities is the swift economic development it achieved with the sugar boom, which led to the creation of sugar mills, the railroad and the port.

203 years after its foundation, Cienfuegos has in its children groups of active actors who preserve and take care of its values so that the so-called Pearl of the South, the Pearl of Cuba, shines more and more.