The Lonja del Comercio (''Commerce Market'') building in

Old Havana Old Havana ( es, link=no, La Habana Vieja) is the city-center (downtown) and one of the 15 municipalities (or boroughs) forming Havana, Cuba. It has the second highest population density in the city and contains the core of the original city of ...

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

served as the

stock exchange A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for th ...

in the capital until the 1959

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in cour ...

. Today, it is an office building.

History

The Lonja del Comercio first opened in March 1909. Set obliquely to the Plaza de San Francisco de Asís on its north side, it was designed in a mainly Renaissance and eclectic style as a commodities trading building. It is in close proximity to Basilica Menor de San Francisco de Asis. The dome is crowned by a bronze statue of Mercury, a replica of the original work of the messenger god by Flemish artist

Giovanni Bologna Giambologna (1529 – 13 August 1608), also known as Jean de Boulogne (French), Jehan Boulongne (Flemish) and Giovanni da Bologna (Italian), was the last significant Italian Renaissance sculptor, with a large workshop producing large and small ...

Architecture

The construction of the Lonja del Comercio began in 1907 and ended in 1909. The building has a stone facing and a steel frame. It was designed by architects Thomas Mur and Jose Toraya, the structural engineers were the U.S. company Purdy and Henderson, engineers for many important Havana buildings including the Hotel Nacional, the National Theatre of Cuba,

El Capitolio El Capitolio, or the National Capitol Building (''Capitolio Nacional de La Habana''), is a public edifice in Havana, the capital of Cuba. The building was commissioned by Cuban president Gerardo Machado and built from 1926 to 1929 under the d ...

building, the

Gran Teatro de La Habana Gran Teatro de La Habana is a theater in Havana, Cuba, home to the Cuban National Ballet. It was designed by the Belgian architect Paul Belau and built by Purdy and Henderson, Engineers in 1914 at the site of the former Teatro Tacón. Its cons ...

and the 1947

Radiocentro CMQ Building The Radiocentro CMQ Building complex is a former radio and television production facility and office building at the intersection of Calle L and La Rampa in El Vedado, Cuba. It was modeled after Raymond Hood's 1933 Rockefeller Center in New York ...

by the architect Martín Domínguez Esteban who also designed the FOCSA Building in 1956.,

Parti pris

The Parti pris of the Lonja del Comercio building in plan is a perfect

square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length a ...

and based on the classic 9 square cube problem that was use

among others, by

Peter Eisenman Peter Eisenman (born August 11, 1932) is an American architect. Considered one of the New York Five, Eisenman is known for his writing and speaking about architecture as well as his designs, which have been called high modernist or deconstructive ...

to design some of his house

and

Andrea Palladio Andrea Palladio ( ; ; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of ...

in the design of many of his villas. The five-storey building has a

steel frame Steel frame is a building technique with a " skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The devel ...

structure. In 1939, an additional floor was added. The ground floor was originally used for warehouses and the stock market, the 2nd and 3rd floors provided office space, while the 4th and 5th floors, which adopted more sober ornamentation, were leased to customs brokers and trading companies.

Renovation

After the

, the Lonja del Comercio building suffered architectural deterioration through neglect. Although the Lonja del Comercio building was part of a capital rehabilitation program that was carried out in 1995 by the Office of the City Historian, in 1989 there is little indication that other similar buildings will be saved at least in the near future.

Gallery

File:Havana - Produce exchange.jpg, Image from 1916 File:El Instituto Cubano de la Estabilización del Café, LA LONJA DEL COMERCIO, Havana.jpg, El Instituto Cubano de la Estabilización del Café, LA LONJA DEL COMERCIO File:Lonja del Comercio building, Havana, Cuba.jpg, Lonja del Comercio building File:La lonja del Comercio - panoramio (1).jpg

Notes

References

Bibliography

La Habana: guía de arquitectura

External links

Plaza San Francisco, La Habana - CubaPlaza de San Francisco. Havana, Cuba
{{Havana landmarks Office buildings completed in 1909 Buildings and structures in Havana 1909 establishments in Cuba 20th-century architecture in Cuba