Within the last thirty years, the history of modern Cuban architecture has received special attention in Cuba, Latin America, and increasingly in the United States. This project focuses on the Modernist generation of architects— the so-called Generación de los Cincuenta, active from the late 1930s until 1959—and extols the national and international importance of their architecture and urban works under four headings: the modern Cuban house, the Modern City from Forestier to Sert, the touristic development, and the Synthesis of the Arts. Seen comprehensively, those works embody the challenges that the architectural avant-garde faced to combine Cuban identity and traditions—the three P’s: patio, persiana, portal— with the tenets of international modernism, in a country that was late to embrace modernity, increasingly under American influence, and on the verge of revolutionary changes.