The Colonial Style

Reading Mark Kurlansky's book Havana has somewhat reinforced my opinion that the Spanish ‘colonial’ style of architecture, which evolved in the Iberian peninsula largely with a view to shutting out the light and creating pools of cool interior shade, whilst it might work well enough in locations like the Cuban capital, here in La Antigua has become largely unfit for purpose. 

Nevertheless this fundamental error is now assiduously preserved by statute. 

My secondary school in London is older than La Antigua and is now largely housed in modern buildings, but here there there exists this obsessive requirement to preserve the superficial appearance of antiquity. 

The materials used as well tend not to be ideal for the tropics either. Wood in particular. And all those tejas which have to be curados, before use and roughly every couple of years. Nobody does, so that everyone with a house covered in these things ends up suffering from a leaky roof.