Royal Bank of Canada Building, Havana

Royal Bank of Canada Building
Royal Bank of Canada Building
Former names	Royal Bank of Canada
General information
Type	Commercial
Architectural style	Neoclassical
Location	Habana Vieja
Address	Calle Aguiar 367
Town or city	Ciudad de La Habana
Country	Cuba
Coordinates	23°08′17.4″N 82°21′09.3″W / 23.138167°N 82.352583°WCoordinates: 23°08′17.4″N 82°21′09.3″W / 23.138167°N 82.352583°W
Current tenants	Tribunal Supremo Popular
Construction started	1917
Opened	1919
Closed	1960
Owner	Bank of Canada
Technical details
Structural system	Steel frame
Floor count	7
Lifts/elevators	2
Design and construction
Architect	Godfrey Davenport
Architecture firm	Purdy and Henderson
Website
	www.tsp.gob.cu/es

Royal Bank of Canada Building, Havana is a Neoclassical-style bank building located at corner of Calles Aguiar and Obrapia in Habana Vieja. The ground floor was dedicated to the bank, the other floors to offices that were rented; a floor was added (seventh floor) for a semiprivate restaurant and club.^[2]

Built in 1917, the building was designed by New York-based firm Purdy and Henderson, Engineers, but supervised by Sumner Godfrey Davenport, who would subsequently join the bank in Havana in 1920. In the same year Davenport moved to Canada to become the bank's Chief Architect.^[3]

This building would be one of Royal Bank of Canada's 65 branches that existed in the 1920s and 24 by the time it was forced to close in 1960.^[4]^[5]

Architecture[]

The facade on the ground floor is of Jaimanitas stonework and the rest of artificial cement stone including all the decorations and cornices, to which a yellow dye was added to accentuate its severity and magnificence. The foundations, columns, architrave and ceiling, the vault, the roof cover are reinforced concrete.

All the interior decorations were made of plaster as well as the use of marble and mosaic used in the pavements, while the Catalan brick was used in the roofing. The metal armor and the glass was used in the carpentry as the doors of streets and interiors were made in cedar. Wrought iron would decorate window openings and stair rails. The access to the different floors was done by means of two electric elevators and a staircase, also having another one for fires.

In 1918, during the construction process, a seventh floor was added to the restaurant and club, specially built for it. This Lunch Club was organized by representatives, bankers, merchants and professionals in general of Havana and worked until 1928 when they decided to occupy the spaces for offices. In 1921 reforms were made on the second floor related to the closing of vain and the construction of a new vault, this time for books. A central court from the second floor, the corresponding portion at the ground floor was closed by a skylight of wired and leaded glass over the banking hall.

Its façade, framed by classical orders, is removed from the sidewalk so that its entrance becomes more accessible and distinguished. Voluminous columns give way to the stairway that led directly to the entrance of the bank, ranking it with respect to the rest of the facades. The building is a large block divided into three bodies, the first formed by the ground floor; the second, for the rest of the floors, and in the last, a large cornice as a finishing touch. The architect Pedro Martínez Inclán made the following observation referring to this type of buildings:

... in general almost all modern buildings, for shops and offices demonstrate a marked influence of New York architecture with its large number of floors, the sobriety of ornaments, the very long vertical lines of its façade, its large cornices and the monotonous distribution of its gaps, which due to climate needs are made in Cuba, are wider.

The Royal Bank of Canada, at the facade level expresses different scales. The use of colossal columns from the basement to the cornice, the ornamentation concentrated on the first floor and the rest is treated as single monumentality showed, in addition to its architectural significance, the bank's hegemony in the finance sector of the city.^[1]