Castillo de la Real Fuerza

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The entrance to the fortress

The Castillo de la Real Fuerza (Castle of the Royal Force) is a fortress on the eastern side of Havana harbour, set back from the entrance to the harbour, and bordering the Plaza de Armas. Originally built to defend against attack by pirates, its suffered from a poor strategic position too far inside the bay. A previous fortress, the Fuerza Vieja (Old Force), was badly damaged in 1555 during an attack on Havana by the French privateer Jacques de Sores (it was eventually demolished in 1582). The fortress is considered to be the oldest stone fortress in the Americas, and is listed as part of the UNESCO World Heritage site of "Old Havana and its Fortifications".

La Giradilla on the watchtower (inset: The original, which is now held in the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales)

In 1558 Bartolomé Sánchez, an engineer appointed by Phillip II of Spain began work on the new fortress initially known as the Fuerza Nueva (New Force). The Fuerza Vieja was been set back away from the harbour, but the new fortress was planned to be closer to the harbour to give it a better strategic position. In the ironworks were established in 1558 but the first stones were not laid until 1562. Work on the construction was delayed due to complaints from local residents who were forced to relocate to make way for the building, and disagreements between Sánchez and the Governor of Havana. The fortress was not finally completed until 1577. Slaves and French prisoners provided most of the labour Built of limestone quarried from the Havana shoreline, it incorporated thick sloping walls, a moat and drawbridge. The governor, Francisco Carreño, ordered the addition an upper storey as barracks and a munitions store, but on completion it proved to be too small to be of practical use.

It quickly became clear that despite being positioned closer to the harbour than the Fuerza Vieja, it was still too far from the mouth of the harbour to play an effective role as a defensive bulwark, so instead it was adopted by Juan de Tejeda as the residence of the Governor of Havana. Subsequent governors made changes to the building and 1634 Juan Vitrián de Viamonte added a watchtower with a weathervane sculpted in the form of a woman by Gerónimo Martín Pinzón, an artist from Havana, and based on the figure crowning La Giralda in Seville. Although the reason for the choice of this figure, called La Giraldilla, is not known, it is commonly suggested that it is honours Inés de Bobadilla, Havana's only female governor, who took over from her husband Hernado de Soto when he undertook an expedition to Florida. She spent many years scanning the horizon for signs of his returning ship (unbeknown to her he had died). The figure became the symbol of the city of Havana (it features on the Havana Club rum label), and is now held at the City Museum housed in the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales in the Plaza de Armas, while a copy is in place on the watchtower. The façade of the fortress was demolished in 1851 to allow O’Reilly Street to go all the way to the docks, and prevent El Templete, completed in 1828, from being overshadowed by the fortress.

The fortress was home to the National Archive from 1899 and the National Library from 1938 up until 1957 when they were relocated to a purpose-built library in Plaza de la Revolución. After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, it housed the offices the National Commission of Monuments and Centre of Preservation, Restoration and Museology. It was used briefly as the Museum of Arms, but the conditions within the fortress were not conducive to the preservation of the the displays. In 1977, on the 400th anniversary of its completion, it was inaugurated as a museum and was used to display exhibitions of Cuban contemporary and international art. In 1990, it became the National Museum of Cuban Ceramics, but as of 2007 no displays are housed in the fortress. Some restoration work was carried out on the fortress prior to the inclusion of the fortification in the UNESCO World Heritage citation for Old Havana.