Coral Gables, Florida on Flickr.
The designs were the finalists in a competition that sought ideas for rebuilding Notre Dame de l’Assomption Cathedral in Port-au-Prince. The original cathedral was ruined by the massive earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010.
Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Flickr.
Notre Dame de l’Assomption as it was on that first Sunday after the earthquake. Mass was held on the side street just behind this cracked transept. The upper part of this wall was taken down not long afterward, to keep it from falling on the rubble or any survivors.
Nearly three years later, plans for its reconstruction are finally getting a start. A six-member panel led by the dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture met this week in Coral Gables to choose the winner of a design competition that sought ideas for rebuilding the cathedral.
Meanwhile, Episcopal Church officials have selected a Virginia-based architectural firm to design a new Holy Trinity Cathedral. Its design will incorporate three murals painted by Haitian artists to include Haitian people in biblical stories. Holy Trinity was renowned for its 14 murals, but 11 were lost in the quake.
UPDATE: A Puerto Rican architect has won the Notre Dame design competition.
Disaster History, Brought to You By Google
The project, “Memories for the Future,” began with a team from Google Streetview compiling a set of before-and-after panoramas of the region’s street network. Now, with demolition imminent, Google has begun constructing three-dimensional interior maps of dozens of public buildings as well. Like Streetview, they are freely navigable.
[…] The scenes are strange, sad, sometimes beautiful. In Rikuzentataka’s Municipal Kesen Elementary School, flooded by a surge in the Kesen River, children’s toys lie scattered in the rubble. On the first floor of the Rikizentakata City Office, where the carcass of a silver car has come to rest, a purple vase sits boldly on a ledge.
Read more. [Images: GoogleMaps]
North Miami Beach, Florida on Flickr.
President Michel Martelly sought to encourage potential investors that Haiti was making progress in building homes for residents displaced by the catastrophic 2010 earthquake. He also said the country is increasing educational opportunities for children, updating infrastructure and creating jobs.
Haitian-Americans can’t vote but they can invest in business and tourism projects in the Caribbean country.
Miami, Florida on Flickr. A muralist in Miami’s Little Haiti gave Wyclef Jean a presidential look.
(AP) _ Anyone who needs to catch up with hip-hop star Wyclef Jean just has to refresh his Twitter feed.
“You know I’m direct about everything,” says Jean, 42.
Some things need more than a tweet to explain, though, so Jean has written an autobiography, “Purpose” (It Books), on sale Tuesday, that explores his political, financial and personal turmoil, including an extramarital affair with fellow Fugee Lauryn Hill.
Here’s my Q&A with Wyclef and a review of “Purpose.”
I tell my dancers, when you go on stage, if you are beautiful they will just say that you are beautiful. They won’t say, ‘You are the most beautiful dancers of the poorest country in the hemisphere.’ If you’re good, you’re good - that’s the chance we have as artists.
Choreographer Jeanguy Saintus sustained his modern dance company, Ayikodans, in Haiti for more than 20 years before almost losing everything in the 2010 earthquake. Through a fundraising rally last year by the Arsht Center in Miami, Ayikodans has survived and returns for two sold-out performances this weekend.
As Haitians in South Florida mark the second anniversary of the catastrophic earthquake that crippled their Caribbean homeland, many are questioning the ongoing aid efforts in their homeland and the support for earthquake survivors still in the U.S. An @AP video by my colleague Tony Winton.
Miami, Florida on Flickr.
An exhibit of contemporary Haitian art created since the 2010 earthquake, “Global Caribbean III: Haiti Kingdom of this World” shows the Caribbean country as a creative hub, not a catastrophe. If you’re in Miami and looking for an alternative to the mournful coverage about the lack of progress in Haiti over the last two years, check out this show at the Little Haiti Cultural Center.
The Other Side of the Water gets its public television debut on Jan. 12. More about Haitian music since the 2010 earthquake is laid out here.
Anba Dekonb (Under the Rubble) by DJ Tony Mix
(Source: largeup.okayplayer.com)
Jan. 12: An Evening of Remembrance at the Little Haiti Cultural Center in Miami. 1 guy in the documentary, Aaron Jackson, and 1 of the filmmakers, Jon Bougher, keep popping up on AP wires. The University of Florida tried to block Bougher and his co-filmmaker from finishing their thesis project after the school banned post-earthquake student trips to Haiti. The fillmmakers went anyway, using private equipment and funding.
npr:
A photo from NPR’s own David Gilkey for the story “Against A Scarred Landscape, Haitians Persevere.” -Wright Bryan
Voices from Haiti: A post-earthquake exploration in poetry
