On the afternoon of Saturday the 22nd, as I passed near República Street and its intersection with Francisquito, I could see that, finally, the demolition of what was the Ambos Mundos Hotel in the 1930s of the last century was beginning. Also known as La Campana building, the dfanger of falling and the loss forever of that building that dates back to 1912, moves many people from Camagüey.

The Office of the Historian of Camagüey city (OHCC) assumed the project, which begins with the partial demolition of its upper parts, to avoid accidents and to strengthen its walls and foundations, which will restore its functionality as a multifamily building.

Do buildings have a soul?

Seeing so many people leaning out at the sad spectacle that the demolition of a work undoubtedly supposes, I could see the nostalgia in the eyes of many residents, mostly elderly, who remembered the splendor times of the site.

I suppose that, to confirm my appreciation, a gentleman of light walk for his almost 90 years, saw me browsing, came over and said that the soul of the building was reviving with this new hope that the new project brings, by erasing so much time from abandonment.

Then I remembered some notes by the architect Ramón Estévez on the European website Arquitectura y Diseño, which left me thinking about the subject and which described very well the soul of homes: “A house with a soul is one with personality, with its own identity because it is endowed with harmonic laws in its design, arises from the interaction of the building with those who inhabit it, light and space are essential. It transcends the material and is close to the spiritual.

Former Ambos Mundos Hotel

Doing a bit of history and dusting off everything spiritual, I tell you that a lot of magic and legend surrounds the place. According to some newspapers from the 1940s, the Ambos Mundos Hotel in Camagüey did not have the elegance of the capital hotel of the same name, but it was highly visited and managed to compete with other nearby ones such as the Colón, the Sevilla and the Confort.

The story was embraced that the renowned writer Ernest Hemingway, in his furtive passage through the city bound for the Menocal estate, Santa Martha, stayed at the Gran Hotel, very fashionable at that time; but the popular legend speculates that it was in Ambos Mundos where the writer spent the night, although there is no evidence.

Scholars of Hemingway’s life suppose that, since his stay in Havana before buying his Finca Vigía was in the hotel of the same name, perhaps he liked to visit the less luxurious hotel of the same name; but THESE are only suppositions, which gave attractiveness to what was a simple and beautiful lodging.

We return to the soul

Nothing of its glamor and magic reached me. Since I can remember, the ground floor of the building had only a group of stacked timbiriches and some houses. However, its cornice with the year of construction and the beautiful balconies told a story kept for more than a century, which links architecture, beauty and much of its almost erased memory.

Although I forgot to ask the name of the grandfather who motivated me to write this story, I could feel that he was right. The soul of La Campana is being comforted, and perhaps, its both worlds -the material and the spiritual- embrace in this shock, which will give way to a new OHCC project, to return the image and charm to the sight of its residents and passers-by.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García