Fusterlandia

José Antonio Rodríguez Fuster was born in Caibarién, Villa Clara, on August 6, 1946. As a teenager he taught peasants to read in the Sierra Maestra during the literacy campaign. From 1963 to 1965, he trained at the Escuela Nacional para Instructores de Arte in Havana, and then he joined the Cubanacán ceramics workshop. Reuters, in 2009, placed his childhood in Santa Fe, the coastal town next to Jaimanitas. Cuban sources give only Caibarién.

In 1975, he settled in Jaimanitas, in what he has described as a small wooden house with two rooms. The village's first land grant dates to 1577, and quarries of the local stone, piedra jaimanita, supplied blocks for the Morro, the Cathedral, and the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales. The census of 1862 counted 21 houses and 67 people, and the village long lived mostly from fishing and building boats. Reuters described the place Fuster found as a run-down coastal community.

Brâncuși

Lonely Planet says the neighborhood "makes Barcelona's Park Güell look positively sedate." Fuster names a Romanian sculptor. By AFP's account, a trip in 1976 took him to Târgu Jiu, where Constantin Brâncuși built an outdoor ensemble of three works: the Gate of the Kiss, the Endless Column, and the Table of Silence. Fuster told AFP in 2025 that the idea took him almost 20 years to mature, and that people think of Gaudí because of the mosaic technique while the concept comes from Brâncuși. OnCuba's 2023 account has him in Romania as curator of a touring show of Cuban ceramics and places the visit in Peștișani, the commune where Brâncuși was born. The Havana city government's site says Bucharest. The three works he names stand in Târgu Jiu.

He remade all three. The Puerta de Fuster answers the Gate of the Kiss. The Torre del Gallo, a 4-meter tower of colored tile, answers the Endless Column, and the Mesa de los Cubanos answers the Table of Silence.

Doña Iris

The first tiles went up in 1994, during the Special Period of the 1990s. Reuters dates the start to 1995. Fuster began with the gate of his own house, set with pieces of his ceramics from the 1980s, and then the patio. "I found the formats of canvas, ceramics, to be too small," he told AFP.

The neighbors came next. Fuster told EFE in 2019 that a neighbor stopped to say how pretty his house was, that she was poor, and that she would like a sign on hers reading "Doña Iris." Signs for two more women followed, "Princesa Diana" and "María Bonita." "It became a sort of contagion," he told AFP.

Fuster has said that nobody pays for the work on their house and nobody pays to enter his studio. He told AFP he funds the tile by selling paintings and ceramics, without help from the authorities. In 2009, Reuters reported that he paid 50 percent tax on those sales, that some of his works sold for more than $10,000, and that painted tiles went for $20. Asked how much he had put into Jaimanitas, he told Reuters he did not know, and then answered: everything.

OnCuba reported in 2022 that early detractors called him "loco" and that bureaucrats and officials put obstacles in the project's way. Reuters wrote in 2009 that some neighbors opposed the work. No account names a household that refused.

Several Cuban and wire reports say the name Fusterlandia came from an American journalist. None of them names the journalist.

What is tiled

The family doctor's office, the Consultorio del Médico de la Familia, is one of the oldest pieces, according to OnCuba. NBC News described it in 2004 as bright blue with white trim. Jorge González, known on the street as El Mexicano, told AFP in 2025 that he lives in a "work of art." His house was wooden and is now cement and mosaic, with a cupola topped by a rooster.

There is a park in homage to Gaudí, and a chess park with a ceramic board and a sign reading "en el ajedrez solo hay una jugada: la mejor," in chess there is only one move, the best one. Two bus stops on Quinta Avenida mark the way in. A wall about 60 meters long at Calle 226 and Tercera, begun during the 8th Havana Biennial, carries signed tiles from other artists, among them Kcho, Roberto Fabelo, Zaida del Río, Flora Fong, and Nelson Domínguez. Fuster calls it "El mural más grande del mundo."

AFP noted repeated allusions in the tile to the 1959 revolution. A 7.6-meter sculpture, the Olimpo de los Cinco, honors the five Cuban agents the government calls the Five Heroes. A mural of Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, made with help from Jaimanitas children, was unveiled on July 28, 2013, Chávez's 59th birthday. Fuster told Reuters in 2009 that he agrees with Cuba's social system and has never been censored. NBC News reported in 2004 that supporters of US policy saw buying his art as "putting money into Castro's pocket." In December 2023, he added a mural for Parranda beer, which OnCuba described as the first time a beer had been advertised on a Cuban street.

No survey of the houses has been published. Reuters described two streets in 2009, and Fuster put the number at 150 in 2012. The Havana city government said more than 80 in 2021, OnCuba said more than 150 in 2023, and AFP, in 2025, said dozens.

In 2025

In May 2025, AFP counted about 1,000 visitors a week. During the thaw between Washington and Havana under Barack Obama, Madonna and Sean Penn walked the streets, by AFP's account, and Cuban state television adds Katy Perry and Bon Jovi. The same report found Fuster at 79, getting around on an electric mobility scooter. His old house had become a gallery and museum of his own work, and he was building and tiling a new house for himself, facing the sea.

Entry to the streets and to the Taller-Estudio José Fuster, the artist's former house and studio, is free. The state portal Cubasí repeated that in March 2026. The studio is a four-story building whose roof terrace looks out to the sea. The studio publishes no hours, and travel listings disagree on whether it opens daily or Wednesday through Sunday, so it's worth checking with a guide or your host before going. Cubasí suggests mornings for thinner crowds. The houses are lived in, and it's best practice to ask before photographing residents or stepping past a gate.

Jaimanitas sits at the western end of Quinta Avenida, about 11 miles (17 km) by road from the Capitolio, or roughly 35 minutes by car without traffic.

Cuba declared jet fuel unavailable at Havana's airport from February 10, 2026, and again from August 31 through the start of October. Air Canada has set November 1, 2026, for its return, WestJet has suspended flights indefinitely, and Iberia does not plan to fly to Havana before June 2027. American and Southwest have kept flying from Florida. The national grid collapsed on September 18, 2026, and took 32 hours to reconnect. The State Department describes daily power cuts of up to 12 hours in Havana.

US law does not allow tourist travel to Cuba. Since September 30, 2026, OFAC no longer authorizes group people-to-people trips, except those booked before that date. The "support for the Cuban people" category remains and requires a full-time schedule of activities with Cubans. Club Acuario and El Viejo y El Mar, at nearby Marina Hemingway, are on the State Department's Prohibited Accommodations List, so US travelers cannot stay there.