UN Regional Office seeks to register Havana's neighborhood as World Heritage Site

HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 22 (ACN) The UNESCO Regional Office is bent on inscribing Havana’s Vedado neighborhood on the World Heritage List and taking actions to that end, including the organization of an open-door conference intended to highlight and share Vedado’s emblematic architectural ensemble, according to a press release sent to ACN.

Come Saturday 25, the public will be able to appreciate local buildings of great artistic and historic relevance usually closed to visitors, as they are home to Cuban and foreign institutions, such as the residence of the British ambassador, a family house, and the very headquarters of the UNESCO Regional Office, among others.

Also intended to make Vedado’s urban and cultural values better known to the participants, UNESCO’s tour features visits to the headquarters of the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists, the National Ballet, the main office of the Federation of Cuban Women, and the National Museum of Decorative Arts, in addition to museums and libraries.

Located in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, Vedado was born in 1858 following an approval to parcel out Domingo Trigo and Juan Espino’s 105-block-large estate El Carmelo, according to historian Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring.

When the Count of Pozos Dulces José Frías and his two sisters got a permit to parcel out their farm “El Vedado”, which stretched from Paseo St. down to Batería de la Reina―located where Havana’s Hotel Nacional de Cuba stands today―the neighborhood rapidly gained in importance.

While in 1870 there were only 20 houses located along Linea St., so called because the railroad that connected the small plot with downtown Havana used to pass through it, today’s Vedado is the seat of the country's main political and governmental institutions.