You’ll likely hear very different opinions of Castro’s revolution depending on whom you ask. Today, visitors can wander into the Taller Experimental to see local artists in action or to purchase their work in the small shop towards the front of the building. They found one elder lithographer working as a fisherman, and he was able to pass down his techniques. However, soon after the revolution, a group of young artists petitioned the government to help them acquire several old presses from France, open a studio and track down the old masters. The number of skilled lithographers in Cuba dwindled in the early twentieth century, following the mechanization of cigar ring and box manufacturing. This particular workshop has an interesting history. Retail dominates the ground floor and includes not only the state-owned coffee shop, but also a micro-brewery, a small museum dedicated to the history of card playing, and luxury foreign-owned stores, including Benetton and Lacoste. Many of the upstairs units lining the square are still residential, and are providing attractive and much-needed private rental units for tourists.
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It took construction crews nearly 16 years to complete the restoration work, which included completely recreating the central white Carrara marble fountain, which is an exact replica of the original, designed by Italian sculptor Giorgio Massari in the eighteenth century. The entire centuries-old plaza fell into disrepair before the revolution and, in the mid-twentieth century, was turned into a large underground parking garage. Plaza Vieja is a quintessential example of the transformation Habana Vieja has gone through in recent decades, in large part to attract more foreign tourists, and foreign investment, to Cuba. Given the density of Havana and the lack of green space, several local schools also use this open plaza as their playground.