Havana Malecón — Colonial Peeling Facade Study
699.00 د.إ
A Habana Vieja colonial building facade in detail — multiple layers of peeling paint revealing ochre, turquoise, and coral beneath the current lime wash, the wrought iron balcony overhang casting a grid shadow on the textured surface.
Description
The colonial architecture of Habana Vieja presents a photographic subject unique in the Americas — the combination of 18th and 19th-century Spanish colonial construction with the revolutionary era’s restricted resources for maintenance has produced building facades of extraordinary texture: the successive layers of repainting over 200 years creating a palimpsest of colour where the current surface is only the most recent addition to a history readable in its cracks and peels. This image was made on a building on Obrapía Street in the old city’s conservation zone — an 18th-century multi-story building whose facade reveals five or six layers of historic paint in the peeling sections visible on the surface. The wrought iron balcony above casts a precise grid shadow on the textured wall in the midmorning light. Shot on a 100mm prime at f/8, the paint layer stratigraphy and the wrought iron shadow pattern are both sharp at the working distance of approximately 4 metres.
