Havana Buildings & Architecture Guide

This fortress was erected to replace the primitive fort built by the Governor of the Island Hernado de Soto by order of the queen of Spain, and that it was destroyed during the attack of the French corsair Jacques de Sores to Havana, in 1555. Jeronimo Bustamante de Harrera was in charge of the plan however he could not carry out the work due to his death.

It was the first impregnable fortress built in Latin-America, and it was considered the preamble of what it would be the fortification plan that the Metropolis created in the Caribbean to protect the route of the Spanish fleet around the different maritime and commercial cities.

The plan is formed by a perfect square of 30 meters each side, in its centre there is a small central courtyard that matches the established patterns of the Renaissance based on the classicist proportion, regularity, order and geometric perfection.

It is surrounded by a wide moat and has access through a wooden drawbridge. In its interior, the first barrel vaults in Havana constructions were used.

The upper storey transformed successively according to the needs of garrison or the demands of governors who began to inhabit it from the year 1590. Among those changes it is highlighted the watchtower erected in the year 1632 above one of its strongholds crowned by a bronze weather vane in a shape of a woman, called “La Giraldilla” as a reference to the Geralda of the Seville Cathedral. This is the oldest documented sculptural work of Cuba and it is also the symbol of the city.