Erica Morawski, "Development Design: Hotels and Politics in the Hispanic Caribbean" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2025)

In this episode of New Books in Architecture, Dr. Miranda Melcher interviews Dr. Erica Morawski about her 2025 book, *Development Design: Hotels and Politics in the Hispanic Caribbean*. The conversation explores how grand hotels in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic were not merely leisure destinations but powerful instruments of national identity, modernization, and political ideology during the 19th and 20th centuries. Morawski reveals how these structures—like the Grand Condado Vanderbilt, Hotel Nacional de Cuba, and Hotel Jaragua—were strategically designed to project modernity, attract tourism, and legitimize regimes, often under the shadow of U.S. imperialism. She examines how architecture, urban planning, and visual culture were used to craft national narratives, with design choices reflecting deeper debates about race, class, gender, and citizenship. The discussion also highlights the complex local reactions to these projects, ranging from pride in economic opportunity to resistance against imperialist overtones. Morawski concludes by reflecting on the enduring legacies of these hotels, now viewed as historical monuments that continue to shape Caribbean tourism and identity. She also previews her next project on design after the Cuban Revolution, exploring how state-led design education and practice became tools for revolutionary ideology and international solidarity. Key takeaways include: 1) Hotels in the Hispanic Caribbean were state-driven projects used to assert national modernity and legitimacy; 2) Design was a political tool—used to promote specific national identities and ideologies; 3) The tension between local agency and foreign influence shaped both construction and reception; 4) Modernist architecture was often chosen to distance nations from colonial pasts; 5) These hotels were not just buildings but complex nodes in broader urban, economic, and cultural systems; 6) Today’s tourism relies on the very historical legacies these hotels helped create; 7) The success of projects like the Caribe Hilton depended on innovative public-private partnerships; 8) Design can be both a site of control and resistance, with local populations actively negotiating meaning.