Havana effect: Visits to Cuba influenced Raul Francisco Rodriguez to follow in the footsteps of his architect father

BY JO WERNE

Special to The Miami Herald

When Raul L. Rodriguez left Cuba at age 11, he already knew that he wanted to be an architect. The grand old buildings of Havana had left their mark on him.

Fast-forward to 1990 when Rodriguez and his wife Ninon took their son Ruly to Havana for the first time. Ruly hated it -- particularly the food. He refused to eat, subsisting on cheese balls and Tropicola. All he wanted was to go home to Miami.

But he made five more visits to Havana -- experiences Ruly, now 26, describes as ''being in a different world 30 minutes away.'' The family's experience traveling to Cuba to visit relatives and the conflict of wanting to be in both Havana and Miami was chronicled in David Reiff's book The Exile: Cuba in the Heart of Miami (Simon & Schuster, 1993).

HIS THESIS

Over time Ruly absorbed his father's love of that city's plazas and buildings and eventually studied architecture at the University of Miami, just as his father did. His thesis was titled A Twentieth-Century Journey in Utopia Design: From Beaux-arts, through Modernism, to Socialist Utopia -- La Plaza de la Republica, La Plaza Civica, La Plaza de la Revolucion, La Habana, Cuba.

Though the title is weighty, the text is easy to read. Learning how the city evolved over centuries, how plazas were built and destroyed by governments, how architects had to flee the country when their work didn't please those in power -- as they have had to do during the regime of Fidel Castro -- makes for absorbing reading.

In early January, Raul (Ruly) Francisco Rodriguez joined his father's architectural firm, Rodriguez and Quiroga in Coral Gables. While working on an extensive number of projects, from public buildings to churches to universities, father and son pause to study large maps of Havana. They talk about the evolution and the neglect of so many places in the city that they call La Habana.

And they talk about the architectural future of the city. Toward the end of Ruly's thesis are proposals for the plazas -- improved landscaping, lighting, programs for civic and cultural activities.

What happens architecturally from one government to another ''is like a relay race,'' observes Rodriguez senior. ``One person or government starts a project, the one following must complete it. It's about space making and nation building. During the [Castro] revolution, a lot of it has failed. The tragedy is not leaving behind the material, but leaving the culture behind.''

VARIETY OF PROJECTS

Rodriguez and Quiroga has a history of creating a vast variety of projects: homes, condos, banks, educational buildings, museums, history preservation/restoration projects. Among the latter: the Freedom Tower, the Charles Deering Estate and the San Carlos Institute in Key West. Ruly and his dad are now working on Homestead's City Hall.

Academic projects include Miami Dade College (where Ninon Rodriguez is a professor of humanities at the Wolfson Campus), the schools of Law at St. Thomas University and Florida State University, Florida International's University House, the University of Miami and Barry University.

While they were young, struggling professionals, Raul and Ninon did a lot of house hunting until they found an acre in southwest Miami filled with majestic oaks. They bought the property and Raul designed a modern house that suited their family while Ruly, their only child, was growing up.

PARIS INFLUENCE

If Ruly designs a home for himself, ''it would be modeled after a Palladian villa and would have Parisian influences since Paris is my favorite place,'' he said. In the meantime, he has done some remodeling to his grandparents' home a block away from where he is living.

The Rodriguezes house was featured in The Miami Herald's Home & Design section on Jan. 20, 1980. In the main photo, Raul is holding 3-month-old Ruly, who was born premature.

''He was so tiny he fit in my hand,'' Raul remembers.

Growing up, Ruly thinks he always knew his dad had designed their house. 'It is small [2,300 square feet] and efficient. My father calls it `birth control through architecture' because if they had had another child he would have had to add an addition.''