At first I thought this was a photo of DC shorts

I recently picked up some old photos from an antique shop in Brooklyn and there’s one in particular that caught my eye at first glance. This sort of looks like the US Capitol Building, but DC doesn’t have palm trees and written on the back is Havana in 1946. This is Cuba’s capital building, El Capitolio. There’s a lot of interesting history about this building and one persistent myth that I actually believed for a long time which is that El Capitolio is a replica of the U.S Capitol Building only smaller, supposedly reminiscent of a time when Cuba wanted to imitate its northern neighbor. The buildings are similar for sure, but El Capitolio is actually slightly taller than the US Capitol and its designer named the key inspiration for the building’s Dome, called a cupola, as the Pantheon in Paris. It’s unclear how the replica myth got started, but you can find examples of it that date back just after the building debuted in 1929. Interestingly, El Capitolio’s construction was overseen by the American engineering firm that helped build some of New York and Havana’s most recognizable buildings.