This initiative by LIGA-ARCHIVOS, titled “The Missing Architect,” aims to recognize the work of Cuban architect Max Borges Recio (1918-2009) through a contemporary lens. To this end, LIGA commissioned two young Cuban architects and photographers, Daniela Estrada and Joe Abreu, to revisit Borges’ work in its current state. After an extensive documentation process spanning over a year, they now present a portrait of a historic architecture that holds significant value but lacks official protection and is precariously preserved in a highly vulnerable context.
The photographs by Daniela Estrada and Joe Abreu provide two distinct perspectives: the first, captured with an analog camera, features detailed black-and-white images that evoke the historical context of each project; the second, taken in color with a digital camera, offers an almost anthropological insight into the everyday life that currently surrounds Borges’ work. While these perspectives may seem isolated and fragmented, together they create a more comprehensive understanding of Borges’ legacy.
Max Borges Recio was one of the leading figures of the golden generation of Cuban architecture in the 1950s, renowned for iconic works like the Cabaret Tropicana (1952) and the Nautical Club (1953). His projects were integral to the Cuban Modern Regionalist Movement, which blended international modernist principles with elements rooted in Cuban tradition.
At a young age, Borges went to study at Georgia Tech and later pursued a master’s degree at Harvard. Upon returning to Cuba, he began working for his father, a former Minister of Public Works and developer, gradually carving out his own path through independent projects. Within the architectural community in Cuba, Borges was considered an enigmatic figure; he rarely associated with his peers and often took unconventional paths in his work. His only known collaborator—besides his father and his brother, architect Enrique Borges—was Spanish architect Félix Candela, with whom he established a partnership in Havana, completing many lightweight concrete roofing projects together.
Following the establishment of the new regime after the Cuban Revolution in 1959, he emigrated with his family to the United States and never practiced architecture again, either within or outside the island. It is known that in 1960 he was a visiting professor at Georgia Tech for a brief period. His only known project from this time is his family home, which, though located on the outskirts of Virginia (USA), maintains a distinctly tropical essence.
Unlike other members of his generation—known as the Historical Vanguard—who reinvented themselves to continue their architectural careers around the world, whether in Miami, Caracas, Paris, or New York, Max Borges stepped away from architecture at just 42 years old. All the work attributed to him was completed before this period.