Antonio Quintana Simonetti

Commercial building entrance on La Rampa. Drawing by Quintana.

The project arose as a result of a public architectural competition held in 1955 for the new headquarters of the Cuban Colegio de Médicos (National Medical Association) and the offices of the Medical Insurance Company. Given the high cost of the site, the complexity of the initial project was increased by the need to add rental income from apartments that would help to make the building profitable. Antonio Quintana's proposal was the winner since it managed to solve the complexity of the program with two volumes: a five-story box containing administrative offices, an auditorium, and lobbies, and an eighteen-story modernist slab with its own separate entrance lobby. Quintana established a visual dialogue between the two geometries and generated new guidelines for the new emerging modernist, mixed-use typologies. in the city.[6]

The Seguro Medico was a private company, they were the landlord and owner of the residential tower and thus subject to the new property redistribution instituted by the Castro government. Early in the new revolutionary government, guided by the principals that: 1. housing is a right, not a commodity, 2. housing should be equitable, and 3. the government is the primary decision-maker, "Fidel Castro sought to release the grip landlords held on Cuban properties with a 1960 urban-reform law that eliminated multiple ownership, gave renters a chance to buy their homes at low cost and made the state responsible for providing housing." Thus, all private property was abolished and the government forcefully became the new owner of the Seguro Medico building.[7]

The first mixed-use building in Havana was the Radiocentro CMQ Building, also on La Rampa (Calle 23). The modernist Edificio del Seguro Médico is one of the earliest mixed-use buildings (commercial/residential) in Havana. Similar to the Lever House in Manhattan, Simonetti set up a relationship of two volumes of dissimilar proportion: a box at the lower level containing the Seguro Médico offices, and an eighteen-story residential block. Similar to the FOCSA Building's podium used only for recreation, the residences are located over the roof of the Seguro Medico offices; a large plane made into a children's playground (garden) as shown in the Quintana sketch-drawing for that area.

Because the building must accommodate a dual program, there is a total separation by way of two scales, two structural modules, and two entrances on two different streets.[lower-alpha 1]

The residential block has an architectural module of 3.13 metres (10.3 ft) by 3.40 metres (11.2 ft). Three 3.13 metres (10.3 ft) modules are expressed on the north elevation of the office block by the 9.40-meter dimension of the bearing walls.[9] The outboard balconies are each of a different color and alternate position on every floor. The lower volume occupied today by the Ministry of Public Health.[lower-alpha 2][10] The 3.40 metres (11.2 ft) width of the rooms is further subdivided into three sections of 1.13 metres (3 ft 8 in) and this module determines the width of doors, windows, and passages between rooms within the apartment. The wooden windows have two sets of nine movable slats that can be independently controlled to modulate the natural light in the room, they can be completely closed to make the room totally dark, even in bright days. The pattern of the windows and door and the bearing walls (9.40 meters apart) are expressed on the Calle N elevation.

Balconies in their present state of disrepair.

The balconies have a six-inch terrazzo baseboard and two incandescent lights located in the ceiling of the balcony above. The front railing of the outboard balconies are the upturned concrete floor slab, the two pre-fab side railings are metal. Originally the floors in the residential tower were of black terrazzo.

There are four structural walls of poured in place reinforced concrete. The two center walls are the shear panels of the tower. The height of the apartment ceiling is eleven concrete blocks high plus a terrazzo base (2,352 millimetres (92.6 in)). They divide the apartments and rooms and are unpainted, set in common, gray mortar, the wall sits on top of a black 152 millimetres (6.0 in) terrazzo baseboard that matches the floors. Several of the doors in the apartment as the bathroom doors, for instance, have fixed louvers between the space from the top of the door to the ceiling, some of the doors have a 320 millimetres (13 in) fixed panel of glass over them. In some of the bathrooms, the terrazzo floor is raised by a step.

In both sides of the rear elevation on each floor, there is a 12.65-meter long wall that is subdivided down the center it is divided horizontally into three parts: 1-Two prefab concrete panels of 6.32 m or 9.48 m in length depending on the layout of the floor. 2- Located under the kitchen cabinets, a strip window of equal length and in the middle of the two concrete panels. The window has wooden "persianas" (venetian blinds) that were widely used in modern and traditional residential buildings in Havana such as the FOCSA Building and the López Serrano Building. The other wall is the exterior wall of the public corridor, made of floor to ceiling concrete blocks and set in such a way that allows for 8" X 8" openings throughout so that the exterior wall of the semi-public corridor is partially open to the elements. The concrete block wall is either 6.32 or 3.17 meters long and alternates with the plank wall in an abstract pattern.

The wall enclosing the vestibule in front of the elevators is made of an aluminum frame for glass panel inserts with operable windows.

Edificio del Seguro Médico. South wall, rear elevation from La Rampa

Edificio del Seguro Médico_wall detail, Havana

The north wall is designed to regulate the view, breezes from the north and the natural light. The entire wall is subdivided according to the 3.13 metres (10.3 ft) module and it is composed of louvered doors and windows that can be made to open completely so that the wall is de-materialized, or, its opposite, be made to change its character to the point where no air or light can enter the rooms. On the rear elevation, two different wall surface designs form an abstract pattern. One, accommodates a horizontal operable window in the middle of the wall, (similar to the FOCSA Building), which is made up of two prefab concrete slabs. The other design makes the wall partially porous by the placement of the cmu to allow for views, natural light and ventilation.

Residential lobby entrance from Calle N, mural by Mariano Rodriguez

The building has two murals, one a black and white tesserae mural by Wifredo Lam entitled Abstracción which is located on the main entrance-commercial vestibule on Calle La Rampa; the other is in the residential lobby on Calle N and titled Boomerang, by Mariano Rodriguez.

• 1956 gold medal by the School of Architects in Havana, Retiro Odontologico building, Antonio Quintana Simonetti (1919-1943), Architect.[4]
• 1959, Edificio del Seguro Médico, Havana, Antonio Quintana Simonetti (1919-1943), Architect.[6]